How did you think about target audience?
When I was planning a target audience for my magazine, I knew that I wanted to create a media product that will appeal to both students and parents involved with TVC. I also planned for the magazine to be a monthly issue, only capturing snap shots of news and events happening at the college. Another main purpose of the magazine was for publicity for the college. Furthermore I researched about college magazines to get an idea of what kind of font types/sizes, colour scheme and images would be appropriate for the cover of my magazine. I also noticed that of all the magazines I have studied they did not have a price on them as they will be mainly for the students attending the college who would not want to pay, unlike a magazine like NME which they would choose to but out of interest therefore I would not have a price on my magazine as this would be a very good idea.
The masthead of the ‘College’ magazine is bold and red which matches the red top the girl in the centre of the image who looks like a student at the college, this makes the college students more attracted to the magazine because they can relate to this distinctive image of a young person who is smiling at them. The front cover of “college” magazine also poses aspects of teenage dilemmas and other interesting stories such as “shes15 & pregnant”. This is a clever technique to use to draw the attention of his or her target audience because the designer as acknowledged, the fact that young people take pleasure from being informed about unusual and even bizarre stories such as “smoking saliva”.
How did awareness of that audience impact upon your visual design and choice of language?
After I asked my fellow students about what name I should call the magazine, majority suggested different new names such as “TVC weekly”, “student companion”, “the informant” and “College life” but I decided to go for “the informant” the reason behind this is because I wanted the magazine’s masthead to set a formal tone and to be easily understood for the parents but also to appeal to the young students in the college, who always want to be informed and up to date about the latest news and event around the college this is reinforced with the word “informant”.
I then decided to edit a logo for the college magazine (fig1). (Which is shown below), since my magazine is aimed at students and parents, the language I used on the front page appeals to them because it’s formal and also youthful with a promotion for a prize win, which the students will find appealing. (fig2)
The colour scheme used for the front cover of the magazine is red and yellow; these are bright colours that mirror the colour of the Chinese flag, this was used to create a generic theme of my magazine for that month. I have also modified the school logo on adobe Photoshop to erase the white background that was part of the original image and to also add colours to it which makes it more eye catching to the audience.
What key points did you learn about Adobe Photoshop and InDesign in constructing your artefacts?
During the course of designing my front cover of "THE INFORMANT", Indesign has assisted me in the area of experimenting and manipulating varities of fonts and their sizes to suit the typeface I was trying to acheieve. I have also used photoshop to brighten the original images I had taken, in order to make them stand out and to be clearly seen.
