College Magazine: Research

before I start planning my college magazine I have to do some research, for this I will take some examples of college magazines that already exist, one from America and one from Britain, both will show how the culture and how the people who attend the college affect the magazines design and content.

my first example of a college magazine that I will research is 'The LC' which is the magazine for Lewisham college in London. The general design of the magazine is a standard format with the title and the coverlines all being in the same place, all the same colour. In all of the editions of the magazine, in this case Autumn 2010 they feature a main coverline in bold, with a smaller regular description to go with the coverline, this may be a different font but it works with the rest of the magazine cover. Below this is the rest of the 'highlights' of the magazine, ie. the other coverlines. I think I might use something similar for my magazine as it gets the message of the magazine cover across and is quite effective.

Another thing I may use is something similar to the title because it stands out, people know what it is, and if you go to the college, which is the magazines target audience then you will know straight away what the magazine is and who it is aimed at, I hope that mine will be as clear cut.

The next magazine I will research is College magazine, which is an american paper format magazine with a fairly large web presence, created by students for students it has a professional layout and big stories for it's target audience, unlike most college magazines it is for college goers in general, not just for one specific college, with a lot of stories challenging problems that teenagers have, which makes the magazine more personal than a standard college magazine that will just inform the target audience of what is happening at their college. I think that main point is one that I will try to use in my magazine as it is a strong selling point of the magazine, and makes it more appealing to the audience, in both my magazine and this magazine is for teenagers.

The font used for the title and other things such as the colour scheme suit the photo and the clothing used in the portrait of Mike Posner in this case, this will be a useful thing to use in my magazine and will increase the appeal of the front cover, as far as contents go it will be a similar as far as the layout but will have more writing than photos.

Overall I think that both magazines are very appealing and have features that I can use for my magazine, of which all will increase the appeal of my magazine and make it stand out on the shelf from other items on the shelf. I hope that what I will put into my magazine, which will be explained on the next article, will make it appeal to the target audience and be a unique college magazine cover and contents as well as meeting the set criteria of this task.