Mock up on front cover and contents page

Research Codes and Conventions of Student Magazines Questionnaire results

From looking the results of my questionnaire, I have decided to call my publication, LC Life. The predominant colour is going to be blue, the font is going to be in Camdria and there are going to be lots of images. The magazine will also cost 50p and is going to include Film/Media Reviews and Opinion articles.

Research Codes and Conventions of Student Magazines 3

I have decided to look at another student magazine with a slightly different profile. Campus life is a Canadian student publication serving post-secondary students across the North American country.

The Masthead of Campus life is in a bold white font with the main image blocking parts of the 3^rd and 4^th letters of the word campus although the word can still be read

And speaking of the main image, it portrays George Stroumboulopoulos folding his arms and staring in the direction of the readers’ eyes while a headline written in Anchorage text which is required to grab the readers attention at the bottom-right of the front cover proclaims that this magazine will reveal his thoughts on being a success and will also give a behind-the-scenes look at his career.

Another thing to mention is the layout. For instance the headline is written in two red text-boxes which overlap each other to form an arrow to make the readers eye read the headline written in a white front while George in contrast is wearing black in front of a blurred out city-scape background.

Like many other magazines, the front cover is scattered with a number of plugs, which shows bits of other information which can be found inside the magazine which includes a review of Grand Theft Auto 4, a profile on free the children’s ‘s Craig Kielburger, A laptop buying guide, and even a topic focused on eco-awareness. These work because most of the topics covered in this magazine appeal directly to its target audience. The key words used to highlight the Sell lines are written in yellow.

Since there are price tags or taglines seen on the cover, this magazine can be printed online and downloaded from the website with no print costs involved.

The contents page can be seen as an opposite of the front cover because while the cover was black with white text, the colours used are white with black text. As for the red text, that is used to introduce the page numbers.

The images have been chosen to represent the Highlights of the magazine’s topics to give the reading audience an idea of what they are in store for. 

Research Codes and Conventions of Student Magazines 2

Chinese Student is published both in English and Mandarin, targeted at Chinese students looking to study overseas. It is a printed magazine with a corresponding e-magazine and website, with a combined circulation of 30,000 copies per issue it is published four times per year and distributed at exhibitions in China as well as to the database of Chinese students searching for a course and this will be the focus of my next magazine review.

Unlike the last two magazine front covers I reviewed, the masthead and text design are more stylized as this magazine has been made to appeal to a different target audience which is the population of China in this case as you can see Chinese language written on the north east corner of the front page and under the English text of the sub-headers. Another thing that is different from the other magazines I’ve looked at is that the colour of the text isn’t limited to one colour and the background’s design has a design influenced by Chinese culture. 

For example, green colour with a plant growing upwards seems to represent starting afresh and growing knowledge.  Another thing to mention is that the text for the plugs have been written in both English and Chinese with yellow green and blue text to signify their importance. According to the grey banner at the top of the page, this magazine was released with a worldwide reading audience in mind.

However this front cover has one major flaw that sets it apart from the others. It doesn’t include the date that it was published, or a tagline because I think that this magazine has been intended to be given away for free. There is a blue plug at the left-hand corner highlighting points of interest.

In conclusion, these two magazines both try to portray an optimistic analysis of student life whose signifiers were not only designed to give a favourable and appropriate image of the product, but also, these signifiers were also shown to have a strong relationship with the textual context in which they the signs were located. In other words, the front covers are one of the strongest aspects of selling magazines. Student magazines may not provide an altogether accurate representation of all teenagers today, but it is certainly a medium that provides escapism and enjoyment for the reader whilst subliminally educating and informing at the same time.

Research Codes and Conventions of Student Magazines

Now that I have managed to cover a magazine of my choice, I have now been asked to choose two more magazines to analyse, only this time, as I am going to produce my own front cover for a student/college magazine, these magazines are both going to be focused on student and college life.

Firstly, the title/masthead of this magazine is simply “Student Magazine” which suggests that this magazine may have less creativity and may have been made on a lower budget than other student magazines which I have yet to see.  As for the presentation of the front cover, the main logo seems to have been printed in a simple white formal font, and since I cannot find any images of other issues, I can assume that the logo remains the same with every issue.  Another thing to mention is that the colour scheme is the same as the last magazine I analysed which is a blue background with white text. However, unlike Empire, which was coloured blue to match its theme, this colour scheme hasn’t been filled with anything to suggest that the colour matches the theme. Although the university scarf is coloured blue which suggests that the blue background matches the college colours.

As with all other magazines,this one also contains the date on which it was published and the tagline. According to the front cover, Student Magazine is published monthly as the issue’s date is stated as July 2010 and the tagline is located on the south-west side of the cover and as for the price tag, it’s located on the top right-hand corner and despite the high quality of the front page, the cost is only £1.99 which can be seen as an advantage over other student magazines.

The main image consists of a cropped up image of a smiling student wearing a graduation hat and a small blue scarf over her shoulder with writing, which seems to be written in a foreign language which implies that this girl, who is named Lily according to the main headline, could be a foreign exchange student from a good quality. I do not think that this is the best cover as it is very simple. But it has done a good job of representing an image of student life and appealing to the target audience of students.

The sub-headings on the front cover focus on studying abroad, which supports my earlier theory of the girl on the front cover being an exchange student, a University guide, a sneak preview at the IPhone 4, a countdown of the top 10 best jobs of the future , a lookback at Facebook  and much more.

Research and Planning: Textual Analysis of a Magazine Front Cover

I have decided to evaluate and research the connotations of my favorite film/media magazine’s front cover, which is, in this case Empire. This work will help me when I start production on my college magazine and on what its front cover should look like.

Empire is the name of this magazine, which is probably a reference to the Galactic Empire of the Star Wars Trilogy as the majority of the magazine consists of the latest movie news and reviews.  Anyway, Empire is published every month and although the main logo uses the same font and keeps the placement of the text every month, sometimes the color of the text changes depending on the main story and the color scheme on the front page. The theme of the front page seems to be the colors of blue and white which connotes a sense of familiarity to Beast and Mystique, which are both colored blue.

Like all other magazines, this one includes the date on which the issue was published which is, in this case May 2011, the price and a tag line, which is located on the eastern side of the magazine. This information is essential as it informs the reading audience of the price and to show how cheap the product is comparing to its rivals.

The main image consists of three characters from the movie featured on the front cover, which are Charles Xavier, Beast and Mystique from X Men: First Class.  This is designed to grab the audiences’ attention more than a rival magazine by claiming on the front cover that there are 2 covers to collect meaning that this magazine is trying to convince the audience to buy both covers for a collection.

This magazine also uses several plugs on the front page such as several sub-headings about other movies like Thor, Hanna and Attack the Block and even a section about celerity advertisement is on the page, which mentions Charlie Sheen, Robert Pattinson and Stanley Kubrick.