Evaluation of my preliminary brief using LIIAR.

For my college magazine, I chose to use a picture of a student as the main text for my background with the Wyke College logo at the far left of the page. I also included a mast head with the name of the magazine itself, and also the institution I was writing for, which is "Wyke College Magazine". I used Arial rounded MT Bold for my main mastheads (contents page and magazine title) and Arno Pro for my sub-headings. The connotation of this is because the font was interesting but not too distracting.
I liked the fact that I chose a student as my background as they were my target audience and the magazine was mainly about them and college life, and what's happening around their college.
I used smaller headlines using simple language, as my aim was to be as informal as possible; using the colour purple as it's associated with Wyke, and also it's quite bold, which makes it more eye-catching.
I intended to make it look as attractive as possible so I used colourful pictures that had something to do with Wyke, whether it was the new healthy eating or sports such as netball.
I think my magazine uses the conventions of any other newsletter or magazine supplied by colleges or schools, as it holds information about this specific college and has pictures that personally identify with most students who study here. I believe the ideology of this piece is the fact that Wyke itself is a happy environment and a positive place to learn.

I don't believe I exclude any specific social groups on purpose; the picture of the student is a boy, but I have included other pictures with both sexes in it.
On the other hand, I haven't included any people with disabilities or those in different ethnic groups but this wasn't purposeful, although it could be considered that way.
If I could redo this assignment, in hindsight I would include more of these social groups, as Wyke doesn't just cater to certain individuals, it's open to all sorts of people.
Also, if I did go back and change things, I might have added a slogan or something along those lines, although I didn't do that in the first place. This is because I thought a slogan might make it seem quite cheap, and that most of mainstream magazines use slogans to sell; and I wanted to be different from that sort of text.

To create my cover and contents page, I used the Photoshop application which I thought helped me to construct my piece, as it made it easier to add more than one picture and make it look more realistic.
I would have liked to make it look more professional, but I did my best and that it turned out quite well.

To conclude, the negative aspects of my cover and contents pages were that they didn't include more than one social group, which didn't represent the college as well as it should have. I also would've made my piece more professional looking, but overall I enjoyed creating it and I think it's alright to say the least.

My finished magazine cover and contents page.



Font styles.

I tried different fonts for my text, as I was looking for something that stood out but went with the conventions of my magazine:

This is an example of  Adobe Caslon Pro Bold, which I liked as it's bold and clear, but I think it's abit boring for my magazine.

This is an example of Brush Script Std, which I think is interesting but difficult to understand.

This is Arial font, which is boring and conventional.

I like Arno Pro Smbd caption and I  think this is a good font to use for my sub-headings.
I’m going to use this one for them I think.

I think this font would be good for my mast-heading. It’s Arial Rounded MT Bold.

structure analysis- what I intend to do with my Wyke College magazine.

L-anguage
I-nstitution
I-deology   
A-udience  
R-epresentation


To make my planning better, I'm going to constuct a written plan of my ideas for the college magazine using LIIAR.

Language:
- As the brief states that I have to use medium shots for my pictures on my front cover, I'll try to experiment with different camera angles to see what works best for that specific shot.

- I'm going to experiment with different fonts and styles on my front cover, keeping them simple yet not boring.
I also plan to keep the writing consistent to keep the magazine looking professional and appealing to a wider range of students.

Institution:
- The institution I'm making this magazine for is wyke.

- I aim to write for the students of Wyke.

Ideology:
- I plan to use a message or moral within my magazine, something to do with learing and achieving within Wyke College.

Audience:
- The audience I'm aiming for is Wyke college students, something that can appeal to all the social groups that study here.

Representation:
- I think the magazine should promote Wyke college and it's positive atmosphere. It should be represented as a great place to learn and achieve.

I like the idea of using a text with students playing netball as the background of my contents page.
It shows more about the college and what it provides and also interests more students; mainly the ones who play or watch sport.
Unlike my front cover, this isn't an original picture, but I might consider using it as I think it'll make a good contents page.

Another picture I decided not to use. I don't think it's right for a cover of a college magazine, although as said before in my intentions for this magazine, I wanted to experiment with different camera angles, which I did with this one.

One of the pictures I decided not to use for my magazine cover.

The reason for this is although it shows a medium shot of a student, it's not in a college enviroment and is different to my original idea.

Again, I'm not sure this one is right for the magazine. If I deconstruct my idea, this doesn't really fit in with what I wanted.



Analysing blog examples with LIIAR.

This example isn't that good. It's over simplistic and very boring, although I like the picture in the middle of the two students, who are both girls which exclude boys in the newsletter, but I don't think it was on purpose.  The language is informal and basic, which is a convention of either a newsletter or magazine for young people.
I think this specific one is a front cover for a sixth form magazine, which means the six th form students who created it would be it's institution. It represents the students who study at "Deyes High" and the people there are the target audience. It could represent most of the social groups who may read it, but again it's content would appeal to young people. It's main ideology is the celebration of good GCSE's and being  part of the sixth form.

Analysing blog examples with LIIAR.

 

The first example I have chosen to evaluate is the Henders magazine, and when looking at it first I realised that it's constructed quite simply, and I dislike the fact that the text is all bunched together and it looks too overcrowded which I don't want my front cover to be like.

The language of the text is simple and informal, which is expected of a normal college magazine's conventions, and the font is used to attract attention to the sub-titles and this works because it's quite bold and colourful.

The background of the cover is a student, which is also easy to do but meets the brief''s criteria, which is what I plan to do with mine. The price of the magazine also relates to students, as the price is quite cheap, which again attracts more readers. This shows that the whole of the magazine represents students.

The institution of this magazine is the student who created it, which means the content would mainly appeal to students themselves as the content will relate to their own college lives, or what they want from college. The content maybe wouldn't appeal to anyone outside their own particular collge, and I doubt adults would want to read it either. This point also shows the audience that the magazine is aiming for; people who study at the college. I prefer the contents page of the magazine which is the one on the right, as I think it's clearer than the front cover and looks more like a college magazine.

Hand-drawn draft

My draft of what I think my magazine should look like.

I plan to use a bold text for the mast head, and keep the wyke colours which are green, purple and white.



Brief - Preliminary task.

Preliminary exercise: Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Research for preliminary task:

Can't say I know what I'm doing, so this girl's blog will be pretty useful I guess.
:|
Like the fact that it's simple, just a picture of a student and some text around it, might have to construct a similar one..
ciao.

Example of blog and magazine cover.