Analysis of Rock Sound

Overview of the magazine industry

Colour mood board

Orginal Ideas statement

Analysis of audience and advertisers mood board

Audience mood board and Advertisers mood board

Information on magazine publishers

Analysis of feature articles

Analysis of contents page

Front cover analysis

College magazine questionnaire analysis

        After getting fellow students to fill in our questionnaires, we depicted the most common answer said by East Norfolk students to suit their magazine needs.

            Firstly, we asked the audience if they read the current college magazine, in which 90% answered ‘no’. This shows us the current product isn’t working and that we need to change it to be more suited to the students’ needs than the current magazine.

            We then asked price and how often they would want them to be printed, a large 85% circled either ‘nothing’ or ‘50p’; furthermore 60% of the audience told us they wanted the magazine to be printed either monthly or every fortnight. This tells us that the students are on a budget and would want longer period between each print which could possibly mean a magazine holding more information every month rather than having a magazine with less information every week.

            We asked the audience what features they would like inside the magazine and gave them a list they could choose from in which they choose their favorite three, we then counted up each point for each feature to decipher the most popular five, these are: student tips, gig guides, latest fashion trends and tips, college events and local events. These will be our cover lines on the front cover of our magazine.  We also asked if the students would like to see a jobs page as a feature, in which a massive 95% said yes.

            The next question was about colours, again we told the students to pick their top three and went through the same process of the top five colours, which were: black, blue, white, pink and red. From this list, we will pick up to 4 colours to feature on our magazine and work throughout as our colour scheme.

            For our image used on the front cover, 75% said either a student or student work; in our case it will be an image of a student as this is a first draft before our final course work pieces and is being used as a way to improve Adobe Photoshop skills etc.

            The name and fonts have been left up to us, however we have been advised to use a modern font to attract the eye of young people; also, to infer the college in our name, for example: EN magazine, EN student or just East Norfolk. 

College Magazine Questionnaire

1            Would you read the magazine?

                                   

 YES                      NO

2          How much would you pay for the magazine?

NOTHING                            50p                        £1                            £2

3          How often would you want the magazine to be published?

WEEKLY              FORTNIGHTLY                  MONTHLY                          HALF TERMLY

4          Would freebies/vouchers encourage you to buy the magazine?

YES                        NO

5          What would you like to be featured in the magazine?

                                                                                Circle your top three!

     STUDENT TIPS                 SUBJECT ADVICE            PROBLEM PAGE    GIG GUIDE

              

  LOCAL EVENTS                 TECHNOLOGY            FASHION     FILM REVIEWS

          

      COLLEGE EVENTS           SPORTING EVENTS

6          What would you like the front image to be?

STUDENT           TEACHER            STUDENTS WORK          NATURE             

 TECHNOLOGY

7          What would you call the magazine?

8     What colours would attract you to the magazine?

                                                                                           Pick your top three!

9          What fonts would you like use on the front cover?

10   Would you like to subscribe to an online version?

                                YES                              NO

11    Would you like a jobs page in the magazine?

                              YES                               NO 

College magazine analysis

            This magazine firstly defies the stereotypical image of a young black male by portraying him as hard working student, this idea has been taken from the textbooks he is carrying in the image, ‘law

, business and society’; it is commonly known that law is a challenging subject so we can take the idea he works hard from the subjects he appears to be taking. He is also smiling directly into the camera, which shows he is friendly and when being compared to a music magazine featuring a black male, they are consistently looking ‘moody’.

            The magazine displays clearly that is in fact a college magazine as it’s masthead is ‘college lifestyle’ however, if we look closer into the cover lines, its suggests it is a college magazine as on one cover line, it states ‘COLLEGE COUTURE’ and in another, ‘MAKE MONEY ON CAMPUS’ telling the reader it is a magazine targeted at students.      

            College Lifestyle have only used four different colours -  a lime green, white, black and a small amount of hot pink. The ratio of the colours is evenly spread apart from the pink which is only featured in the ‘SPLAT!’ in the top right third of the magazine. Such a bright colour among duller colours has been used to contrast the rest of the colors, this is done bring the attention over from the target audience and is a technique widely used.

            Furthermore, the magazine have only used around four fonts, this is so the cover is simple to read and doesn’t get too messy; it helps the audience to read the magazine in fast and easy. A range of fonts have been used to help the target audience of students to understand and determine what stories are more important and what features in the magazine.