College Magazine Proposal

Who are you aiming your magazine at specifically? 

My magazine is specifically directed towards college students. It's a college magazine which would let college students know whats going on around their college, it would give them another way of contacting their college as the magazine has it's details on the contents page, it would also advise them as well as giving them information.

What will your magazine be about?

My magazine would be about the college it's representing specifically, it would also have information about things happening in college that the students may want to know like: enrichment opportunities and what trips are going to held for what subjects and how much. It would also give advise on stuff like revision and coursework.

What are your ideas for cover lines? 

My main ideas for cover lines were stuff like:
. Enrichment Opportunities
. College Trip Schedules
. Tips for revison
. How to keep up on your coursework

This was because these are the things that are most likely going to appeal to college students, especially if they really need help, or would love to go on a trip and have more exciting things to do when they don't have class.

What title have you decided on a why? 

I decided to make my main title for the magazine 'College Days' as it shows that the magazine is a college magazine, it also gives the impression that my target audience is college students, which is exactly what I was going for. I ws going to go for something like 'College Times', or 'College Weekly' but these aren't that unique and something most people would pick.

What fonts did you want to use?

I wasn't exactly sure to begin with, I did like the idea of 'Avenir Black.' In the end I just went with fonts that went with the whole idea of the magazine and made it look appealing as well as eye-catching.

When in the year will it be published? 

My magazine would be a seasonal magazine so you could get it all year around, and the colours, pictures etc would change depending on the time of year each issue came out.

What kind of image do you expect to put on the front cover and how will you go about this? 

For my front cover I thought an image of a college students standing in front of the college holding college books would be a good cover as it represents the magazine well. When it came to getting the picture I just asked a fellow student I they'd happily be on the cover of my magazine.

How frequently would it be published? 

My magazine would be published every week, this is so every issue has information from the past week that the students may need or want to know about. This is also so the students are updated regularly on whats going on and on things that may be happening in the future that.

What images colours would you use on the contents page?

I'd use the same colours so that the theme continues on to the contents page. For pictures I'd make sure that they related to the articles within the magazine. For example, if there was an article about students getting the best grades in a certain amount of years. One of the pictures could be of a student holding up their grade sheet with a proud smile on their face.
 

Contents page

I made sure that my contents page went along with the same colour scheme as the main cover did, this was to show that this is the magazine colours. I also stuck to the same typeface for the titles as this is what represents the magazine and makes it recognisable.

I added boxes around the outside of the text to make the contents page look less plain and just that slightly more interesting to look at. The images on the side would actually take the frame of the boxes around it again to make the page more appealing.

To make this page better I could have used more exciting colours, as the combo I have used it rather dole and boring, using more of the blue or just any brighter colour would have lightened the page up a bit. Like I did on the College Magazine Cover I made sure I added all of the elements that would be on a contents page to show that, that is exactly what it is supposed to be.

College Magazine Cover

Rectangle Frame Tool

This is my first proper attempt at making a magazine cover on InDesign. I used many different techniques and tools to make my cover the way it is now. Firstly, I used the rectangle frame tool, to make the frame for the outside of the A4 page so that I could fit my main image to the frame. I had a problem with this though, as when I fit the image to the page it became slightly blurry, even when I set the image to 'high quality'. So, because this didn't work I found a way of making the picture no longer blurry by putting it on 'Overprint Preview,' which showed me how the picture would look if I were to print it.

I then started to add the text. I first started with the Masthead - 'College Days' as the Masthead is one of the most important parts of a magazine as it's how the target audience recognise the magazine. I decided to make my title Blue and Black as blue is a bright colour and the black contrasts with the blue and makes the heading stand out. To make the inner part of the picture blue and the outer black I used colour flip. This is where I add the colour of the inside of the shape, I then click on the icon with the 'T' and it flips it to the shape of the T but it's only outlined. I then just pick the colour I want and it's different the the inner colour. 

I then went on the do the rest of the text, using a colour scheme which complimented the blue of the title, but also went with the colours of the picture. I made sure I added the main elements of a magazine to make it look like it's supposed to be a magazine and not just a poster.

After the main text was done, I then decided to add Puffs/Plugs to make the cover more visually appealing. I did this by using shapes to make the outer box, then adding text which would draw the reader in and make them want to do. For example, adding a competition at the bottom like I have done. I also messed about with some of the tools a little bit to see some of the affects I could do to make the Puffs/Plugs become eye-catching.

Drafts

 

This was my first draft of my college magazine cover. It's effective, but it needed interesting stuff to be added before it would actually draw the target audience in and make them want to read the magazine and not just pick it up, glance at it quickly before putting it straight back down as it's not that interesting.

This was my first draft of my contents page, at this point I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with this, but in the end I think it came out pretty good. It could still probably be improved, but it's effective.

Magazine Flat-Plans

Magazine Cover Flat-Plans

Contents Page Flat-Plans

These are my initial ideas for how I am going to lay out my Contents and cover page.

College Magazine Cover: Initial Ideas

InDesign Cover Practice

This was my first attempt at making a magazine cover using 'InDesign'. I decided I was going to keep it simple as I was getting familiar with the software. I think that my first attempt was rather good, simple yet affective. I used the title 'PREMIERE' as I intended for it to be a film magazine.

I used many techniques - one of which being making the main picture to the same size of the frame.  Also I made it so the title was wider and taller by using this tool which moved each letter further apart, or taller, or wider. Lastly, I made the main colour of the title back, then I gave the title an outline, which I choose to be red as it makes the title stand out.

Task 5: IPC Case Study

IPC Media 

IPC Media is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher, which have more then 60 iconic media brands; selling 350 million copies of their magazines each year. (formerly International Publishing Corporation).

IPC Media have an audience of around 26 million

UK adults.

 History: 

The International Publishing Corporation Ltd was formed in 1963 following the merger of the UK's three leading magazine publishers: George Newnes, Odhams Press and Fleetway Publications. Together they formed the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). Then five years later the IPC Magazines was formed, in 1968.

 Some key aspects of IPC Media history:  

• 'The Field' newspaper was launched in 1593 and within a year became the largest newspaper in Europe.
•  'Country Life', 'Horse & Hound', 'Shooting Times', 'Yachting World', 'Amateur Gardening', 'Cycling Weekly' and 'Amateur Photographer' where also launched in the 1800s and are still thriving to this day.
•  The first of IPC's four traditional women's weeklies: 'Woman's weekly', was launched in November 1911.
•  'Homes & Gardens' became one of the first magazines to be published after the First World War.
•  The sudden interest in the music scene, brought the arrival of NME (National Music Express) in 1952
•  NME was the first major UK music title to get its own internet site: nme.com
•  In 2000, IPC Magazines was renamed IPC Media.
•  In January 2010, IPC Media restructured around three key audience groups: men, mass-market women and up-market women. 

 This publishing company groups it's magazine titles under three divisions, each focusing on a core audience;

Connect: 

Targeting the mass market of women 

• Teen Now        
• Woman's Weekly
• Chat Passion
• Women
• Pick Me Up
• NOW
• Woman's Own 
• Chat
• What's On TV?
• Good To Know Recipies 
• Chat - It's Fate
• Soap Life
• TV & Satellite  Week
• TV Easy 
• TV Times 

South Bank: 

Targeting up-market women 

• Marie Claire 
• Essentials 
• 25 Beautiful Homes
• In Style
• Ideal Home
• Look
• Homes & Gardens 
• Living etc 
• Feel Good Food
• Beautiful Kitchens 
• Feel Good Home
• Country Homes & Interiors
• Style At Home 

Inspire: 

Targeting the market of women

• Country Life
• International Boat Industry (IBI)
•  The Field 
• Practical Boat Owner 
• Shooting Times 
• Yachting Monthly 
• Shooting Gazette 
• Yachting World 
• Sporting Gun
• Super Yacht Buisness
• Horse & Hound 
• Motor Boat and Yachting 
• HORSE
• Motor Boat Monthly 
• Eventing 
• Rugby World 
• World Soccer
• Nuts
• Golf Monthly 
• NME
• Uncut 
• Cycling Weekly
• Cycling Active 
• Cycling Sport 
• Mountain Bike Rider 
• Decanter 
• Amateur Photographer 
• What Digital Camera 
• Amateur Gardening 
• Angel's Mail 

TV Choice (Most popular magazine in the UK)

 TV Choice

Circulation: 1,309,469
Adult Readership: 1,680,000
Female Readership: 1,089,000
Target Market: C1C2 Young, mass market adults
Frequency: Weekly
Price: 42p

TV Choice brings in £549,976 a week over shop counters.

£549,976 in sales

+

£330,000 in advertisements

=

A gross profit of about £879,000 per week

 

Advertisement Rates For Magazines

FM (front, main): £17,000
IFC (Inner front cover): £18,000
IBC (Inner back cover): £18,100
OBC (Outer back cover): £19,500
DPS Colour (Double page spread): £34,000
Half Colour: £9,400
Quarter Colour: £6,700

Class Notes 2

• According to the periodical publishers association: 1.103 billion magazines were circulated in the UK in 2008.
•  There are 6 kinds of magazines:

1. Consumer - Sold in newsagents.
2. B2B - For people at work.
3. Customer Publishing - produced for organisations to give to their customers as a form of marketing.
4. Part Works - A set number of issues builds up to make an 'encyclopedia' on a certain topic. 
5. Newspaper Supplements - Come free as part of the daily or Sunday newspaper. 
6. Academic Journals - For university-level discussion of all sorts of topics.

• UK boasts 7945 magazines in total.
• The most popular magazine in the UK is 'TV Choice' with a circulation of 1,309,469.
• The UK's best selling Women's magazine is 'Glamour' with a circulation of 526,216.
• Research has found out that: 

1. 9/10 UK adults read consumer magazines.
2. Each consumer magazine is read, on average, for a total of 50 minutes.
3. The average UK adult buys about 22 magazines per year.
4. £1.6 billion is spent on advertising in consumer magazines each year.

Task 4: Extension

Ways in which musicians are styled to represent different genres of music

There are many ways in which musicians are styled to represent different types of music. For example, on 'Kerrang' magazine the musicians are styled differently to the likes of a magazines which represents Pop musicians. This is all because of the target audience for a genre of music. A girl who is into Pop music and doesn't really listen to any other genre of music isn't really going to be interested in Rock or Metal music, the musicians may even scare her because of how they are presented as well as how they present themselves. Like the likes of Slipknot or Motionless In White, because of the way these musicians present themselves many people would judge them on the way they look and won't even give their music a try, but bands like Bring Me The Horizon, Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens don't really present themselves in a way which is known as scary or abnormal, making it so more people are willing to give their music ago.

It's the same with any type of musician. Rap, Pop, Punk, Goth and the likes. Rappers are also a god examples, as they also represent themselves  and are presented different. Rappers usually wear baggy clothes with a baseball cap which sometimes is backwards. Things like this for different genres attracts a certain type of audience,  but also pushes away people from a different audience who don't like that sort of stuff. 

There are cases where people don't look at the way the musician is represented,  they just listen to the music and judge them that way instead of what they're wearing, as just because of the way they look it doesn't mean that there music isn't going to be any good, for the person knows they could really like their music but they'll never know as they never gave it a try. 

Task 4: Essay

To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer? 

Teen magazines seem to affect girls, more so than boys, as the content for the many teen girl magazines you can get are vastly different to the many football and gaming magazines you can get for teenage boys. The 'Kaiser Family Foundation' studied the top four teen magazines, and found out that 44% of the articles were focused on dating and sex, 37% on appearance, and only a 12% of the articles were focused on advice for schools and careers. Even the advertisements for the magazines are focused on beauty and appearance.

These are a few samples of the articles that were found in some of the top ten most popular teen magazines:
 •    “The Ultimate Get-a-Guy Guide”
•    “Get a Bikini Butt”
•    “Six Star Couples’ Secrets for Everlasting Love”
•    “Love Clues: Fifteen Ways to Make Him Want You Bad”
•    “Get Gorgeous: A Survey of One Thousand Teens Reveals Seventy-five Favourite Beauty Products”
•    “Find True Love: Twenty-four Crucial Clues to Snag Your Crush”
These articles show some of the content of a few teen magazines, these are things you don't expect girls from the youngest ages of 11 - 12 to be thinking about as they should be thinking more about school, and things that may actually help them in life, as looks and boys shouldn't really matter at that age.    

Bliss, Shout, and Cosmo Girl, are just some of the few teen magazines that focus on beauty, this is instantly shown on the cover of their magazines; all three covers feature a shot of a celebrity looking their finest (these images have usually been air-brushed and edited, therefore giving teenagers a false idea of prettiness). They also all usually feature headlines that proclaim many ways in which teens girls could make themselves over. Some of these magazines even state ways in which teen girls can dress to look 'sexy;' should teenage girls really be going around trying to look 'sexy?'

I think these magazines have the potential to affect teens substantially, and that they have done on many occasions, it usually affects how they feel about themselves, and can even lower their self-esteem. This is because on the front of most teen magazines they have a picture of a celebrity looking their best, but the picture is usually airbrushed and perfected so the celebrity looks amazing, but in reality not everyone is perfect. This not only lowers girls’ self-esteem, but also makes them insecure and depressed, as they don't think they're pretty enough. Research is beginning to show that even boys are beginning to get affected by this, not just girly.

These magazines don't just make girls insecure because they don't think they're pretty enough, it can also be for the fact that some of these magazines even point out the ‘flaws’ in celebrities and the clothes they're wearing. For example 'Victoria Beckham' gets mocked for some of the clothes she wears, it's going to have an impact on many teens, especially if they look up to her.

In conclusion, magazines are quite substantially to blame for the impact they have on teenage girls, as they give young girls an image of the 'perfect look' which is a look which is quite impossible to achieve as no one is perfect, plus the images in many of these magazines have been airbrush to get rid of any so called 'flaws' the model/celebrity have on their face, therefore giving young girls a false image of perfection, this not only makes girls want to look like these models/celebrities but it can also lower their self-esteem and make them insecure.

Teen Magazines

These five magazines are some examples of the many teen magazines you can get, they all have the same codes and conventions like most magazines do, but they also have certain elements that would appeal mainly to their teen audience. These magazines are mainly aimed for ages 12 to 19, and sometimes even attracting the attention of people of an older or even younger audience. 

You can see these magazines are mainly directed towards teenage girls, from the substantial use of the colour pink; which is stereotypically used as a ‘girls’ colour. Not only this, the magazines use quotes such as,’ Boy’s, BFFS and your body,’ ‘the price of pretty. How far would you go for perfection,’ to draw in young teenage girls, who are more worried about boys and how they look, then they are about how good their grades are in school.  

These magazines are also known to affect teenage girls in many ways. For example, it can make them think they're over weight, and not pretty, as well as all sorts of things like that, as many girls compare themselves to the person on the cover, which can cause them to think they're  not good enough. It also can lower their self-esteem and make them insecure about how they look. 

Film Magazine Comparisons

Each of these magazines have a variety of different magazine elements to catch their target audiences eyes. They do this in a variety of different ways - by making text stand out, with a colourful background that is a colour that still compliments the magazine, but doesn't look too out of place, yet still makes the text noticeable. They also use phrases like "First Look," or "Extra Content," as well as sometimes not even finishing a sentence; which they put in a plug as this makes the reader want to know more.

All these magazines have a masthead which is in relatively the same place, but are all presented in a different way. For example, on most of the 'Empire' magazines the masthead is red and therefore stands out - This is so that the magazine is easily spotted in shops or on a newsagents sleeves as the same use of font and even colour makes the magazine recognisable to the target audience. On each one of the 'Empire' magazines the main image is placed in front of the masthead, this is so the image can be seen. This is done on most magazines so the target audience can see what the main feature of the magazine is about.

Cover lines for most magazines our usually put on the left third of the magazine, but our sometimes put on the right side, and on the rare occasion of it being a limited edition, or special version of the magazine dedicated to a certain thing; there are usually no cover lines as the vast majority of the magazine is dedicated to the featured article. These cover lines show a summary of whats in the magazine and give the target reader an idea of what the magazine consists of, this is so they can see if it's worth buying the magazine or not.

On each of the magazines, the main head line is the cover line is one of the biggest pieces of text, after the masthead on the cover, it's also a colour that stands out the most of everything on the cover to draw the target audiences eyes towards the masthead and the main cover line.