Preliminary task - Evaluation

Preliminary task – Evaluation

What I think went well on my college magazine would be the text and the colours that I had used. I had made sure that the colours that I had used were appropriate and would match and certain scheme that I wanted – I didn’t want to just use any colours as I personally thought that would make my cover-page more childish than College.

“Your front cover looks nice and it is clear to read. The colour red used in the text stands out more which I think is a good idea to grab the readers and I like how your main image links to the masthead. =)”

Also, not only did I want to have the colours engage the readers, I wanted the font to. I had made sure I used bold, but stylish font to attract readers to the front-cover. I thought that using a plainer and smaller text would be inappropriate for the younger readers in the college. This links on to the layout of the magazine, the text that I had used would have to be visible, but also able to perfectly fit onto the front cover without being messy or unclear.

“In terms of layout it suits perfectly well. There are less teasers making it look not too packed to read. Overall your front follows the codes and conventions of a magazine”

I didn’t want to overcrowd the magazine and make the front cover too intimidating to the audience as many teenagers are reluctant to read too much. I wanted to ensure that my teasers stayed short and sweet and captured the main highlights of the magazine.

For my content page the colour scheme that I had used had been abolished and I wanted to make the content page much more colourful than the cover page. Although the front cover is more important in attracting the audience, the contents page is just as important to show the reader where the stories they want to read is. I made sure that the colours that I had used matched so they created their own little scheme of their own. I wanted to use unique colours so they were engaging to all of the audience.

“Your contents page looks good overall. I like the title for your contents its like you've used unique colours. The audience won't get confused as in to what to read since you've outlined what to read”

“The colours you have used are very nice! The bright colours give the page a 'glow-in-the-dark' effect, especially with the letters being unlined.”

I made sure that the masthead on the contents page was just as, if not bigger than the cover page to ensure the readers know what page they are on.

What do I need to improve on?

I think that I need to improve layout sometimes with spacing and images. I feel that my front covers teasers and cover lines were too close together and looked untidy and made the page look crowded.

“The coverlines could have been spread across the page: instead of leaving the bottom of the page without coverlines you could have written them on the bottom of the page or devided the page and spread them.

Also, on the contents page I feel I should add more photos as it looked too plain and dull with only one photo. I thought that if I added too many it would look crowded and unprofessional but I learnt that only using one also looks unprofessional and dull.

“But in terms of making it a bit more interesting is to add images”

1)      I need to work more on layout with images and fonts and choose carefully when planning my actual music magazine to make it look more professional

2)      Choose an appropriate colour scheme to match the genre of the magazine.

3)      Make sure that my journalistic skills come across in teasers, cover-lines, editor’s note etc. to make it more professional than the college magazine.