Evaluation of preliminary task

Evaluation.

For my preliminary task I have designed the front page, and the contents page of a college magazine. I have included a medium close up image of 2 students’ that are working on the grounds to provide a closer look into what is available here. The overall layout of my college magazine is neat due to the cover lines being short and not covering the photo. There is also not to many colors used.

Looking at the cover of my magazine, it should be clear to the reader who the audience is due to it being aimed at college students. The gender of my college magazine is male and female as Farnham College is for boys and girls. The age of people that might read this magazine could be all ages because a mixture of age ranges go to farnham college. The magazine has got a layout to appeal to everyone of all ethnicities because all races are welcome here. This particular issue of ‘Farnham college’ magazine might appeal more to the new students as to it has a lot of information on new dates and open evenings.  There is also a segment about enrolling in the new courses and A-levels so that students make the right choice and enjoy the courses that they study.  This issue of the magazine is mainly to welcome the new students and inform students what will be available this term.

The audience that my magazine has taken to is a cross-audience because both the teachers and students at Farnham may want to read it. This is because teachers need to see when events are as much as the students do. Also ‘college’ is a more relaxed and mature environment so its nice for students and teachers to have something that they can both relate to.  Although my audience can also stretch to parents too which is useful so that they can learn the key dates to support there child as much as possible.

The design and layout of the Farnham college magazine has reds, greens and white so that it is appealing to both genders. The cover photograph is of 2 students using the mac computers. The picture shows that students can come to college in there own clothes but it also shows that the students are relaxed and clearly do not feel pressured by fashion and can dress comfortably and how they want.  The front cover also has the Farnham logo on it, which is a symbolic sign because we would not relate it to Farnham without knowing what it was. The picture features the students heavily concentrating but looking happy at the same time which means young people are enjoying college life and doing there courses.

Some semiotics that i can pull put from my magazine cover  are the Farnham logo is a symbolic sign because you have to learn the meaning of it to recognize that it is the logo. Another sign i can find is the barcode which is an iconic sign because it is used globally so everyone knows what the meaning is. On the contents page the picture of the student and teacher, the freshers fair and the college are  iconic signs because they are all photographs so they represent there actual meaning.

Before the start of my preliminary task I had very little knowledge on how to use Photoshop and the apple mac computers. Since using this new software I am now able to complete anything needed in Photoshop although this is the first time I have used it. This is because whilst creating my college magazine I had to repeat a lot of the steps. For example- making the layers for each different piece of text and the pictures. Also I had to fix pictures and blur them using the special effects box, which also allows you to do black and white and lots of other effects.  I also learnt how to use the mac computers in a few lessons using Photoshop and other software.