In the preparation of my media product - which was to create a geography magazine front cover, contents page and five, double page articles, all based on natural disasters. I had to guarantee my final product looked realistic so it would be able to sit on the shelves alongside other major monthly magazines. Consequently I carried out some research on what the target audience would like in a geographical magazine. My main target audience is readers from the years groups nine, ten and eleven.
My product consists of twelve pages: a front cover; contents and five, double page spreads. I worked solo on this project, doing the research, editing, the Photoshop work and the designs solely by myself. I researched magazines of today to gain the knowledge of the typical ideology, connotations and conventions of a magazine aimed at 13 to 16 year olds out in the shops today. This helped me produce a magazine of the same standard, yet keep it satisfactory to work from.
I aimed the cover at both sexes. I did this by having a conventional image in the background of the cover, which is part of the main topic covered in the magazine. I kept the colour scheme neutral by using blue and green tones, which are stereotypically masculine but are considered earthy colours in a geography magazine. I gave the magazine a large title and a left hand side layout where all the hooks are on the left, and the background image shows through. This style and makes it more recognisable, so that when the reader goes to buy a magazine, they just need to look for the bold title and they know what they’re buying.
I used an asymmetrical cover layout. These all help the naked eye focus on that area where the magazine has emphasised to draw in attention. Using bold writing for the article hooks emphasises them, so that the reader spots the catchy hooks without delay. I justified the layout of the cover so that the image was the total background and nothing was left white. I did this because people can see the meaning of the magazine through the image on the front, and if this is the main image, people will know what it is straight away.
The barcode, the price and the date of the issue are all based on front cover conventions too. Using a ‘standard’ price of £7.99 was chosen because of the prices of geographical magazines out today and how much they cost. I could have also, asked the target audience how much they were willing to pay for the magazine during the questionnaire and compared it with those in the market today.
Whilst creating the cover, I was just fiddling with positions and settled on a final position for everything, which I, as a student myself, thought would catch the target audiences attention most.
On the cover, I also added the definition of what a natural disaster is to help the target audience understand what they were going to learn about.
I added a slogan underneath the title. I did this because most magazines have a tag-line/slogan of which the magazine is recognised for. And if I want the magazine to look realistic as possible, I have to add the conventions of a present day magazine.
On a contents page, columns are usually used in almost every magazine, whether it is one, two or three. I did not stick to this convention due to the fact I only had 5 double pages to write on the contents. I jazzed the contents up by putting shapes around the different pages. The shapes were often those which symbolise what would be on the page. E.g waves for flooding, and movement lines for an earthquake. I also chose colours which often represented the theme of the page. E.g. green for the colour of earth in an earthquake, and blue for a tsunami as it is water.
On the contents I also added an image of a mountain at the bottom to give the geographical magazine more effect, and the sharp edges on the plain background gives the page a little bit more edge.
I used the same font and centred everything on the page except the title, as I thought it looked better this way and made everything stand out.
On the tsunami page, I did not stick to the convention of columns in an article, I just left the justification of the text to read from left to right, as this is the style of most textbooks at school. I jazzed the page up by putting shapes around the title of the page, which makes it more creative and modern looking.
On the tsunami page, I also added images on the page to do with the theme. I added pictures to show the devastation and what a tsunami wave looks like. This is to help the readers revise by looking at the pictures and what had happened, rather than writing out everything. If the page was just full of writing, readers would not be interested in it. I know this as in my questionnaire every child said they would like pictures of the disaster in the magazine.
I used a pronunciation at the top of the tsunami page to help the readers understand how to say the word tsunami. By pronouncing it in colloquial form makes the readers interact with the magazine.
I also added a wordsearch on the tsunami page to help the readers with key words. Making them do work, yet still feel like its fun.
I used the same font through out ‘Tunga’ on size ‘12’ which is easy to read and is big enough to fit everything I needed on the page.
On the earthquake page, I used the same text layout and title layout as the tsunami page. I made the background green and the writing green to symbolise the earth, as it is seen as green on a map.
On the earthquake page, I also added images on the page to do with the theme. I added pictures to show the different types of earthquakes and what the difference between the epicentre and the focus is within an earthquake. I also used images from the
I used the layout of the page through-out the articles. With the definition and how the natural disaster happened and what they caused on the left hand side of the double page. Whilst, on the right hand side the case study was placed.
On the volcano page, I jazzed the page up by putting flames around the title of the page, which makes it more creative and modern looking, and the flames refer to fire/heat of which the page is about.
The pictures I added to the volcano page were to do with the features of a volcano and what a volcano looks like. I kept the layout of the page the same, with the information on volcanoes and what they were on the left and the case study on the right.
I created a crossword in paint and copy and pasted it onto the volcano page. This again makes the readers believe there having fun, yet they’re having to remember the definitions and links within the page to get the answers for the puzzle.
I used the colour scheme of orange and red to symbolise the fire/magma/lava/heat within a volcano. Having the different colours symbolising the different pages will make the readers just flick to the colour of the page rather than looking a the page numbers.
On a flood page, the colour scheme was blue to connotates water. I added waves coming off from the title to add effect.
Whilst still having all the text to help the readers learn, I added pictures on this page too showing what happens in a flood, where
I highlighted key words and good phrases in the text, which made them stand out. I did this so that the readers could recognise a little bit about how floods occur etc, by reading the key terms first. This is a thing I often do in my own work which works really well for me, so I thought it would be nice to see if other people could learn from it.
I also, added two little puzzles on the bottom of the flood page too. As the target audience did recommend that they would like puzzles within the magazine in their questionnaires.
I completed a page on the hurricane natural disaster, which followed the layout of the other article pages. The colour scheme I used was purple, which was suggested in the questionnaire I handed out.
Adding pictures to the page again, opened the range of learners, as most people don't learn by just reading. The pictures showed what a hurricane looked like, and the temperatures of the hurricane season, and the devastation left by hurricane Katrina.
I used a more recent case study as most people know about this great natural disaster. I also highlighted things to make objects and text stand out.
I added the quick quiz to the page again. I added this because in most textbooks which i learnt from, especially GCSE, quick fire questions were always on the page to help you understand more about what you were learning. I found this helpful, so I decided to use it on the articles within this geographical magazine.
I used the colour scheme on the page which was shown on the contents. E.g. The hurricane page was in a purple shape, so on the page of the theme, was the matching colour.
On most of the article pages I kept the layout the same. I did this because this occur in most school books i've learnt from, so to keep it simple, i kept it the same. Although I could have changed the layout and gave it my own twist, I think you've still got to have some textbook features in the modernised magazine i've made.
I kept the magazine very bright and colourful to make it stand out. Many other textbooks and magazines used within Geography are very plain and simple, where as I invited alot of colour into my design and made it very adventurous!
I made sure the pages were divided perfectly by adding a guide in on Photoshop. This way i didn't have to estimate where the next side of the page was.
I used Photoshop throughout the making of the magazine, as I understand how to use the features on the program, and know how to create unique, modern and stylish outcomes.
If i had to change anything with the project it would be the front cover to make it more modern and not just have one picture on. This is because if there are more pictures on the cover, people know that there is more in the magazine.
