Proposal For College Magazine

I will be producing a magazine cover and contents page which has the purpose made for those who attend college.

The cover will be designed specifically to appeal to college students, it will be aimed at both male and females who are around the ages of 16-18 years of age. This will be evident in the main image, colour scheme and cover lines i choose to publish. It will be available to buy only by the college students and therefore makes the audience specific to those who attend that college. It will accessible supermarkets, it will be purchased to those who are interested at college, it has a niche audience in mind.

The content of my magazine will also specify the target audience by featuring exam related articles,  this will show that the magazine can educate students about achieving and the most successful method to revise. It will also include elements that will appeal like competitions, games and gossip. I hope that it will have content which is helpful and educational but with additional articles and features that students will attract to and make them want to read the magazine.

The cover lines that i have proposed to be presented on my cover will be '10 ways to succeed' 'Revision Guide Inside' 'Student Low Down' 'Win a free bus pass' 'Last years results revealed!' these are some ideas that have relation to the content and will attract students when they read them. I will use the 10 ways to achieve as a puff and plug to entice the students into wanting to know more to benefit them. They are all short and snappy cover lines so that they get to the point, the audience will see the lines and decide whether they are interested in buying the magazine, this will be down to what is included within it as indicated by these cover lines.

The title i have opted to use is 'SMAG' this is an abbreviated way of saying 'student magazine'. I choose this because it has the potential to be iconic due to the uniqueness of the word. It is also short, one worded and therefore could be easily identified and recognised. It creates a fun aspect to the magazine and could attract students to buying it. Some of the other ideas for titles included, 'College Life' 'Student Low Down' 'Student Life' 'College Weekly' however i rejected them due to the basic and standard portrayal. I wanted something which was one worded, fun and interesting. Although initially i knew i would have the use of student or college embedded in my title, i was able to get this without evidently using the formal word.

The fonts i wish to use on my cover will be a variety of san serif and serif font styles, the contrast in fonts can make it unique and interesting. I will use fonts such as georgia, news stand. and gothic because these are stand out fonts and are easily identified when placed on a magazine. They will also attract the target audience because it is sophisticated yet not too formal, it can portray a sense of youth for the students. The masthead will be in a bold font which is also a font which is widely used yet portrayed in a unique way, this will make it iconic and stand out.

I  would publish my magazine during exam season, because this will relate to the revision and exam cover lines i plan to use. During the academic year i feel this will be the main period in which students will purchase a useful student magazine for advice, support or as a mechanism that will help them relax in the process of revising, therefore by publishing the magazine around this time will be helpful for the students and the content will be specified for this period.

The image i hope to achieve will be a student who is in the library with work surrounding them portraying revision and studying independently. The student would portray calmness and happy gestures to interpret how revision can be depicted in this way. It will be a medium close up, showing the student as the main focus with aspects of college work around them, also showing in the background the environment it is in. I will go about collecting this image by going into the college library and finding an appropriate candidate who is studying and adjusting the gestures to make it how i expect it to look.

The magazine i made would be published each term, so it would have one during the first term whereby new students are attending, the christmas period and then the periods leading up to the exams. Due to it being a student magazine i feel publishing it weekly or monthly is too frequent because students wouldn't necessarily be inclined to buy every issue. The content it includes will be the aspect in which will entice them.