Evaluation of My College Magazine Outlet

First of all, the types of sub tasks that went well on my magazine were that my chosen photograph for my front cover and contents page. I was not confident of how to handle the camera as I only know the basics features of a camera so I felt like I still need more practice and try different angles and find a good quality lighting for my front cover image because that’s what the main subjective and point for my music genre of magazine would be. But since I quite like the feel and expression that my chosen photograph for my college magazine as it’s suitable for the type of magazine and it would be able to attract its main target audiences. Also, I think that I now am more comfortable in using InDesign software as before, I didn’t know what the tools are for and what they can do and so on. I wrote down the names of the tools, such as the texts, images, paint tools, eraser etc. on my notebook so I won’t keep on asking questions to my teacher as it’s taking the initiative. This way, I wouldn't be able to waste my time management and be able to finish it just in time to hand it in; which I completed the front cover of the magazine and its content page early. So then I have used my spare time to go back and see what text or images I could use in order to match the target audience’s preference and make them interested onto my college magazine.

The other elements that went well for my main task was my image manipulation because I have used Photoshop software for my front cover, and I used certain effects for my chosen image to be included on my front cover image appearance and adjusted the high and low levels of brightness of the chosen image and its contrast tones. This was because I wanted it the image to appear brighter than it looks so it would bring the image into more life rather than not using any effects at all – as it may seem dull and unappealing to the target audiences. The background became brighter when the effect have added in which it appears more appealing and the upgraded its image quality quite a bit. Finally, I also like the way I have came up with my masthead of my college magazine as it titled “LSChronicle” which the ‘LSC’ was the abbreviation of my college name as it stands for Leyton Sixth Form College and I added the capital C to be included as ‘Chronicle’ because I thought it was a creative thing to do. The font colour schemes for my masthead and sub heading which is red, black and yellow also blends well together as I was contented and felt like the target audiences would be able to take interest from it.

However, there are weaknesses that I would want to improve in the future. One of them was that I need to layout my elements such as images, texts and masthead, the date, bar codes around my front colour magazine because the music genre that I chose was to go for indie/rock type and they tend to have the type of magazine front covers that appears lots of elements and appear busy. So comparing to my college magazine, I still need to include more relevant text that would interest my target audiences for my indie/rock type of music genre magazine. The texts to include could be things like, for example, Paramore is back with a mini album hence the fact that the group is known to have an indie/rock type of song selling albums to their fans. Also, I would include catchy cover lines such as ‘enter a competition’ or ‘win a prize’ in order to catch the audience’s attention and be able to be entertained about it. Also, my contents page needs to have more context and elements as my college contents page appears “boring” and “needs to improve more” as feedback obtained from my classmates. 

They reviewed it as, ‘it needs more time to improve it and the background colour schemes doesn't seem appropriate for a college magazine as the colour pink seemed girly and only targets girls, not including boys. This would come as bias and would not gather as many main target audiences for the magazine as it would lose its value. So this time, I would start including other important key features that needed to conclude on a magazine in order to attract its own target audiences, globally. For me, I also need to improve choosing the right font styles for my mast head, texts, cover lines and captions because I don’t think I chose an appropriate font style for my college magazine as it doesn't blend and work well together with the colour scheme chosen as well. I need to then improve my journalism techniques because my context doesn't say much text information and I need to write more than that in order to appeal and gather more audiences as it don't look professional – leaving gaps in between texts; it would only bore the reader and be off hook from the type of magazine they’re reading.

The main 3 key points for development when producing a music magazine:

• ·         Obtaining appropriate and appealing images for front covers and contents page, linking to the type of genre music an individual had chosen
• ·         Reasonable House Style & Ethos
• ·         Photoshop and InDesign software users (the two are the most sensible software’s to produce a music magazine)