Monday 14 February 2011

Nature Magazine Cover

 One of the most frustrating procesess I've ever had to go through in my life. But It's a part of the course and I've finally managed to devise a "magazine cover" using the near impossible to use and needlessly complicated adobe photoshop.

Due to the fact that I couldnt even change the text colour on the front cover



I had to try and lighten the image so the text showed up better on it, losing the whole "spooky" theme of the magazine. While this was a major setback at least the text shows clearer now than it did before.

The language I will be using for the nature magazine will be slightly informal. The reason for this being that I want to try and keep the magazine entertaining and an interesting read, so I'll try and keep the magazine as witty as possible, which would prove a difficult task if the magazine was too overly formal. The texts used on the front cover vary in size and colour to try and create a more eye catching cover. Unfortunately I couldn't get the exact colours, and some looks slightly like diarrhoea has been used for a font, but overall it at least shows that the magazine is informal and open to many readers. The text however is still quite hard to read in some areas and I plan on editing that fault.

The target audience of the magazine is actually targeted for middle aged people and upwards. Although at first this would seem an obvious contradiction of trying to keep the magazine slightly informal, any jokes or casual language included will be sophisticated and witty, so that an older audience can engage well with the magazine. This may possibly attract younger readers. The intense stories and pictures included in the magazine involving natural disasters will also maybe attract a younger reader.

Considering my appalling skills with photoshop, and its difficulty to use, I'm happy with the front cover of my magazine to an extent.

Friday 11 February 2011

The MS nature Massacre

Considering I have no technical ability whatsoever when using adobe photoshop, this was quite the achievement  when I managed to get the creepy look I was trying to achieve for my natural disaster themed nature magazine.

Original Image


First attempt with editing on photoshop. Darkened image to create spooky look and added a title.


2nd attempt at editing. Blacked out the ages. No idea what that blue and green crap is all over the picture, I blame the school computers. Can't even upload a simple picture onto the internet. Oh dear lord.

Monday 7 February 2011

Newsman Magazine

Newsman Magazine is a magazine distributed for the students of  Newman, Birmingham University. The title of the magazine "Newsman" is supposed to go with the name of the university, "Newman". Funny.

The magazine is a informal magazine, as you can see from the cover below, which I've reviewed.

The magazine tries to keep it "fresh" using informal words and phrases like "drops in". Whether or not this will fair well with the young adult crowd at Newman University is debatable.

The whole theme of the paper is looking ahead. Stories such as video games could reduce child obesity and finances will interest people thinking about decisions to be made in the future, which would suit a university crowd quite nicely.

The layout of the magazine is a formal layout, with pictures and text scattered on the front cover with images  mainly on the left and text mainly on the right. Different fonts and text styles are used with the texts to try and more the cover more appealing for Uni Students. In all honesty it still looks dull.

Quad Magazine..

Quad Magazine is a free magazine distributed  to the graduates of Queen Mary University of London.


Here I have reviewed the front cover of the magazine.

The magazine is clearly aimed at the older, more sophisticated audience. It's distributed to graduates of the Queen Mary University of London, so you're not exactly getting anything "dumbed down". The aim of an older and more sophisticated audience is emphasized from the first image that catches your eye, an image of a very stern looking lady in the top left hand corner.

The layout of the front cover is also very basic and simple, with all pictures laid out in blocks, text is well conserved and simple, and even the title has a plain bold text. Though this may not be the most mind blowing front cover, it will no doubt appeal to it's targeted audience, the sophisticated graduates looking for a smart magazine to read.

3 stories are mentioned on the left hand side, with 3 pictures to go with each story. Apart from that, there are a few images of other well groomed people on the front cover.

The magazine looks quite plain but will no doubt be attractive to it's targeted audience. Will anybody actually pay for this magazine? I highly doubt it. No wonder it's free.