Original Images

These are some of the original photographs i had taken for the preliminary task, the college magazine. I decided to take as many different types of images as i could so i had a range to pick from for my final ones. Here are a few of the ones that i thought were the best, and i made my final selection from these. For my final images i have used bits of a couple of these but edited them on Photoshop to create the best image for my college magazine front cover.

Analysis of Questionaire

To research into college magazines i designed and distributed a questionaire. After i gathered them all together and studied the results to see what my target audience would want in the college magazine.
The first question was straight forward and i just wanted to know whether they would actually read a magazine or not. 8 people said no, 5 people said yes and 2 people said maybe. This suggests to me that the current magazine isn't working, so there is room in the market for me to make a magazine they actually want. Most of the reasons people gave for not readint the magazine was because it was boring.
To create a magazine that my target audience wanted i asked a question to see exactly what they would want to be in the magazine. I gave 8 options and a chance for them to add ideas but most people picked just 4 of the options. The topics most students wanted to see was sports, music, jobs and college events. This gives me an idea of what definatly needs to be in my own magazine.
Given the option to whether the students would be willing to pay for this magazine almost everyone said yes but 50% of them said they would only pay between 50p and £1. As most people said they didn't read the magazine i didn't want to sell it every week as people would get bored of it, so i wanted to know how often it should go on sale and 5 people said every fourtnight, and 7 people said once a month. This proves to me i should do it every so often rather than every week as it's not what the target audience wants.
Another thing that i discovered from this questionaire was that students favourite thing about college is the breaks and the social time they get. So this gives me a good idea of where to put the magazine on sale, for example the common rooms and advertising in the smoking shelters etc.
70% of my target audience said they wouldn't want an online version of the magazine. So i now know not to make one as it would be a waste of the funds that the magazine makes which could go on better things to help improve the magazine.
Once again 70% of the students wouldn't subscribe to the college magaizne, so i kmow i could always put a special offer on my front cover to encourage my target audience to subscribe at a cheaper price.
The final question i asked was whether these students wanted a formal or informal magazine and 100% said they all wanted an informal magazine.

Analysis Of An Exsisting College Magazine

This college magazine is one i found on the internet that is an exsisting magazine that i have been looking at to see what is already on the market for this type of magazine i am creating. Straight away when looking at this magazine cover you can tell it is aimed at students who are perhaps in college or at university. The way its set out is how you would expect a typical students work and notes would be, the theme to this front cover is just general students materials and things they would use on a daily basis. It has quite a busy layout which distracts you abit from the focus of the magazine, but in a way it also draws you in and want to know what it is about.
There are quite a lot of colours used but most of them tie into the pastel group of colours so they compliment each other well and don't stand out to much from each other. The main colours that stand out the most to me when i look at this image is the yellow backgrounds and the black text, just because they are the brightest colours on there which dont tie in with the pastel colours so you get drawn to them first.