Evaluation

Over the time given to me for this assessment I have spent it planning, researching and producing the final piece, a front cover for a college magazine. I had started to begin researching all of the different conventions of a few different magazines. I did this so I could incorporate the conventions used into my finished product. I also used this research to try and find the use of themes within magazines. The magazines I had looked at was mostly aimed towards student magazines. I analysed a British college magazine and an American college magazine. This was to determine any major differences between these two magazines.

After I had finished researching I then moved on to the planning. I began to plan for this by writing out a check-list of tasks. This was based on the tasks I must complete by the end of each day. I tried to evenly spread out all of the tasks around the three weeks given to provide some leeway for my other subjects. Once I had done this I then decided to create various pieces of work to help draft some ideas and ended up creating a mind map for thinking of a name and other aspects of this magazine.

I attempted to include as many different conventions used throughout other student magazines such as the style of the layout was mostly based on the layout of the magazines which I had analysed earlier. For example a both of the student magazines which I had analysed had a large masthead based at the top of the page. I intended to aim this magazine cover at the hard working majority of colleges as I feel that not only is this good for success but having an intelligent looking person on the front of the magazine may change opinions of some people on how they see college life and possibly may join them in there trek for knowledge.

When I began to put together my final cover for my magazine I decided to create each of the images elements individually in a image manipulation program. I started with the mast head however I did not use this particular masthead for the final product as it did not fit in with the rest of the image so as a replacement I created another by creating two layers text one slightly bigger than the other so as it could overlap the other. After this I complied the two together to create a white backdrop over the other text like this:

I had chosen the name “The Wyke College Magazine” for my magazine name by using the mind map I had created. The names I had produced were not up to the standard I was looking for or inappropriate for the task at hand, so I stuck with my first name for it was simple yet sensible. One could say that the name and presentation of the name in the masthead is the most important element due to it's possible ability to capture a persons attention.

If I had a lot more time then I would have done a lot more planning and research than have done for this exercise. I would have also attempted to create a more iconic cover with more original images. In short I think that my magazine cover is quite decent quality however I feel that everything can always be improved so I know that there is many flaws within my work. Such as the title is not as outstanding as I would like it to be however it is a drastic improvement over the last one I had created. I would incorporate more conventions and different techniques into my work than I'm sure that this work would turn out to be a much greater overall piece of text.