Analysis of College Magazines Cover

Analysis of College Magazine Cover

The target audience of this magazine is mainly students, 11-19, parents of students at Bodmin College and also teachers, who are the secondary target. There is no preference over gender. It is not aimed particularly at one social class, rather a mixture of social classes depending on who the student/parent is. Social classes that are frequent in Bodmin are mainly B and below. The purpose of this magazine is to be informative about events and news at the college. It also attempts to be entertaining, though it is somewhat lacking.

Mast – The masthead does not work well at all, the background picture used to create a autumn feel simply does not work with rest of the magazines design. The title of the magazine simply says what it is, meaning you do not have to think at all about the magazine or what is in it, the familiar Bodmin College logo is used and the word “magazine” is written in a small and thin font making it inappropriate to use on the already busy background. Many of the popular magazines such as Kerrang have bold and appropriate fonts that are relatable to the subject of the magazine and the target audience. This particular magazine does not. The masthead overall should be larger as well and should take up 1/8 -1/6 of the magazine in order to stand out. It does not represent the target audience or what the magazine is about.

Main – A common convention in a popular magazine such as Kerrang will usually be to have a main image, which is usually a medium close up of someone or something. The Bodmin College Magazine has 3 images that take up the entire space of the main body. The quality of the images is also very low. The contents of the images are mainly girls, which may be attractive to males following Laura Mulvey’s theory on woman being used in advertising to attract men, however the fact that the images are all about dancing then it may also put off potential male readers due to the subject of the magazine. The lighting in the photographs is not consistent and lowers the saturation of the pictures making it less appealing. The magazine does not use the method of using a conventional 3 to 4 colour palette instead it uses the colours which are in the photographs as they take up the entire main body of the magazine in order to cover any “dead space” The colours completely clash against the busy green background of the masthead. Popular magazines use colour palettes, which are consistent throughout the cover of the magazine. The purple smoke in this magazine does not belong to any palette, as a colour palette is non-existent.

Layout – The layout of this magazine does not fit in with any conventional layout of magazines, the top 1/6 of a typical and successful magazine would be used to highlight the main contents of the magazine and would be used to attract the masses of its target audience. The top 1/6 and left 1/3 is the area of a magazine is the area in which the eye is instantly attracted to. Magazines such as cosmopolitan use this to their advantage by splashing words such as “sex” all over this so-called “sweet spot”. The Bodmin College magazine does not use any sort of layout apart from the obvious shoddy masthead. Bodmin College has gone against another convention known as a reverse, a method used by successful magazines such as Empire in which white text is used on a dark background in order to add contrast and depth. The heavy use of images does not work well on this magazine front cover as it give no insight into the contents of the magazine, instead it seems apparent that the designer has used images in order to cover any dead space.

Text: The Bodmin College magazine does not have any text apart from the title of the magazine used in the masthead, which is simply “Bodmin College Magazine”. In conventional popular magazines text is used in order to draw the reader in as well as tactical use of images. The Bodmin College magazine does not use teasers or give any insight to the contents of the magazine by using titles or and text based information, popular magazines such as Empire and Cosmopolitan use text and images to attract the highest amount of its target audience, previously mentioned, using the word “sex” to attract potential readers. Empire offers other leading stories on its front cover in order to attract a secondary target audience who may not be interested in the main headline or story. Menu bars used at the bottom 1/8^th of a magazine are also used to attract other potential readers.

 Analysis of Skive magazine

The magazine is very text heavy and gives a lot of insight as to the contents of it; this is not commercially effective as it gives a sense of misunderstanding as to who exactly the target audience is.

Masthead: The masthead of this magazine is very effective, the non-conventional font gives us a sense of which the target audience is and at a first glance I would agree the target audience was 11-18 years old, which is a positive as this magazine is intended for students. The use of the smoke gives us a sense of the atmosphere the magazine is trying to create as well as the word “skive” and its meaning creating an almost rebellious mood toward the atmosphere. It is also represents fire, which may be to show that the news inside is hot.

Colour: The magazine has followed the common convention of using a colour palette consisting of 3 to 4 different colours. The colours used do not represent a particular gender. The main colour is black, which again gives a representation of rebellion and negativity it also gives a nice background for the teaser pictures to sit on as this way the colours do not clash with the background. I think the colours used are definitely effectively used in order to attract the target audience. The rebellious mood to the magazine supports Stanley Hall’s theory. Black often represents rebellion, which is stereotypically related to youths.

Teasers: The teaser pictures are very effective as they are sticking to the theme of the magazine, they are not all the same size and are parallel to the border of the magazine and looks rough and shoddy which again backs up the representation of rebellion. They are on a white background, which makes them look as though they are Polaroid pictures. They do relate to the supporting texts surround the magazine cover however they are not represented logically, the text supporting the teaser of the life boat is located in the menu bar, where as the text supporting the Africa trip is located in the top right of the magazine in much plainer sight due to its typography.

Images: The images used in this magazine are typical to conventional and similar images used in the magazine industry, A main picture is used and contains other smaller images to act as teasers/spoilers. The heavily edited and highly exposed image gives an unsettled feel to the magazine. The extreme close up of the girl again adds to the unsettled feel that the magazine has by having the unsettled picture so close to the reader. This contradicts the theory of Laura Mulvey in the way that the girl portrayed is not being used in any way to attract the opposite sex into reading the magazine but instead used as a representation of an emotion. Stress. The photos are of a high quality and contrast well with the colour palette

Layout: The layout of this magazine follows the common convention of using a main image with supporting teaser photos and text to give an insight as to the content of the magazine and to also grab the reader’s attention. The issue number gives it a professional feel and also the cracked background adds to the representation of stress and rebellion. The title of the magazine as well as the effects used connotate stress and rebellion; the cover looks busy as it is filled with many teasers and stories, which is effective as there is no dead space. The spacing of the words could be improved and also the size as it gives a false representation that size is important however that is not the case.

Typography: The typography includes the teasers and the text used to attract its target audience. The text used is very simple as it is does not represent a particular gender, which represents that target audience is not gender bias. The font used is consistent throughout the cover, excluding the words “stress” which has been given a cracked font to indicate or represent stress.

In conclusion I would say that the Skive magazine front cover is effective in attracting its target audience with a combination of both high quality representative images, an effective masthead and title which again stick to the theme found throughout the front cover, stress and rebellion. It has successfully used a colour palette and overall has a very professional look about it.