INITIAL IDEAS FOR A COLLEGE MAGAZINE

I will be designing a magazine based on college in order to inform/entertain young people who may be considering colleges to attend. Because of this, straight away my magazine is going to have an audience of young people, most likely between the ages of 16-18, as this is the age that a majority of people attend college therefore, I will need to make something that is appealing to them as much as possible. I’m going to focus on informing my audience about colleges in the local area, what they have to offer, positives and negatives and ultimately the college experience as whole. Because my magazine will focus on more than one college, I’ll need to make sure that it equally judges each of the colleges and it isn’t biased in anyway otherwise my magazine could potentially come across as subjective. In terms of what will feature on my magazine, I will need to take into context things such as the title of the magazine, cover lines and tag lines. Ideas for my cover lines will be lines such as “the ultimate guide to sucess” “Top 5 colleges” and “Ofsted’s vital opinion”. These are all cover lines that will grasp my audience’s attention as they make college choices sound extremely exciting. It is important that I engage my audience as a magazine with a genre like my mine can easily become boring compared to a gossip magazine like “HEAT”. I will take strengths from a wide range of magazines in order to apply them to mine and make it as effective as possible. Additionally, I have had to consider possible titles for my magazine. I need to pick a title that will instantly grip people and make them want to purchase it. something like "college magazine" or "education" has no originality to it which is why i chose 'UR'FUTURE. it stands out and directly appeals to the public and makes the message being put across much more personal. The font of my text was the next thing for me to take into consideration, i wanted something modern and fresh rather than style of texts such as This or this. Those style of texts are quite dated and are not common in 21'st century magazines which means they wouldnt be a great choice to use.

The presentation of my magazine is vital as things such as the front cover image, colors and dimensions all contribute in making it visually appealing. Because my magazine is going to appeal to a broad audience, I cant just have pink throughout as this will obviously be partial to girls. It needs to be something that appeals to both sexes therefore an image of a group of people or a boy and girl together will be quite effective. In terms of where it will be taken, either in a college enviroment or a blank white canvas will work quite work. I particularlly think a white canvas as a background will be the best option as it allows the coverlines of the cover to stand out and it allows you to edit the image and be more creative with it.

The next thing is the publishing of my magazine. I would publish it termly so that it can be updated with any new information from colleges. Publishing it weekly would be pointless as its not the same as a gossip magazine which constantly has new stories to talk about. It will also need to to be up to date with seasonal changes and any events that take place, this will help in keeping my magazine relevant and utlimately keep my readers interested.

This is my inital flat plan of how I would like my magazine to look like. I have analysed it outlinign the main points that I am pleased with and how/why I think they work effectively.