Prelim Task Evaluation

By way of evaluation I feel that the preliminary task of creating a front cover and contents page for Bodmin College was relatively easy, this was because I had used Photoshop before at GCSE.  As Bentley (1997) states “The making of the new through the re-arranging of the old”, I have applied this through the use of common magazine conventions of using; a Masthead, colour scheme, tag line, imagery and suitable fonts. I found it was very simple to put the magazine together but the planning section I found difficult because I had a wide variety of ideas as to the magazine design, this was because the design had to cater for the target audience and there is a large age range meaning the stories, text and design all had to appeal to all of the different age groups. 

My magazine has used and followed the common conventions of magazines that have been applied to every major magazine published for years, it follows these conventions by using a masthead, tag line, colour scheme, issue number, suitable fonts and imagery that is suitable for the target audience. My magazine also represents particular social groups such as youth by means of using imagery that is relevant to the age range that is considered as ‘youth’ in the form of the main image on the front cover, which features a ‘youth’ relating to a rugby story which is the focus of the magazine in terms of the stories. 

My magazine appeals and attracts the target audience through the use of text/fonts where I have used I more teenage orientated font which has a more relevant appeal to my target audience and is more suitable than fonts like comic sans. It also addresses the needs/interests of my target audience by using stories which are going to be appealing to the audience by including their interests and using models of the same age meaning they can relate to the stories. It also attracts the target audience through the use of colour because the colours used are not gender biased and they are not too bright making the magazine neutral in terms of gender appeal, although the main image features a boy it may still appeal to girls in a reverse of Laura Mulvey’s theory that “women are seen as objects of sexual desire”.

From this process I have learned how to use different aspects of photoshop which I have previously not used in my GCSE course, this has improved my skills in magazine creation in terms of making a detailed masthead, with varying colours. Imagery that represents the target audience and is of a good enough quality to be on the magazine cover. And I crucially learned the correct layout for a college magazine in terms of text, colour and image ratio which means that I have to use a colour scheme which isn’t bright and sickly or too dark and doesn’t have image and text all over the place like a soap magazine.

Looking back at the prelim task I feel that I have learnt how to correctly make a magazine, take appropriate photographs for a front cover and contents page, make a magazine plan that has all of the relevant common magazine conventions. From this task I have progressed enough to make a high quality magazine cover that will appeal to a particular target audience and be suitable for a market.