Codes and Conventions of Student Magazines

Student magazines have their own codes and conventions.  We analised several magazines in class and I found the following conventions:

• A large central image of a student
• Masthead has connotations relevant to a student
• Font for the masthead is in a modern style
• Price is quite cheap and sometimes even free so it is affordable for students
• There is a large use of imagery to appeal to a youth audience
• Topics that interest young people e.g. movies, college events and celebrities
• Colours are often fairly neutral to appeal to both a male and female audience
• The model is usually an ordinary looking student so the student audience can relate to it

Student Magazine Analysis

The magazine masthead is Aspire.  This connotes a sense of looking towards the future, which is what students are doing in education, preparing for the future.  It tells the students to think about what they want to get out of life and suggests that this magazine can help them to achieve.  The use of white on green ensures that the title is bold and stands out.  Also, green is a calm and positive colour as it connotes to the environment and nature, and it is a neutral colour that appeals to both the male and female gender.  The font used is fluid and informal, targeting a young audience.

The model used for the central image is smiling and happy.  This connotes to the reader that the magazine will be enjoyable to read.  This is backed up with a landscape background connoting that reading the magazine will be relaxing.

The cover lines in pink and white contrast to the green and brown shades of the background.  They also add a fun and vibrant feel to the magazine suggesting that it is a fun and interesting read.  The cover lines are positioned on the bottom edges of the cover so that they don’t disrupt the impact of the central image.

The contents page uses images to break up the text.  This makes it more appealing on the eye and less like a newspaper.  The use of green echoes the theme first presented on the front of the magazine making it look professional and well thought about.  Laying it out in two columns like a newspaper makes it seem grown up and mature, which most students want to start to feel.

The masthead of this magazine is Impact.  This connotes to the audience that the magazine will have a large effect on their lives.  Using a formal and structured font connotes a sense of being grown up and mature, showing this is for students who want to get good grades rather than those who want to party.

The grown up feel of the magazine is also reflected in the central image used.  The striking black and white contrast of the image makes it stand out and appear formal.  The formality may be to make the reader feel more grown up and well educated, to treat them like an adult.  The lack of human features and bright colours shows us that the magazine is going to get to the point of informing us without messing around.

The contents page is spread out on a double page spread, allowing for an introduction to the magazine from the editor.  It also allows for the contents to be laid out in an aesthetically pleasing shape, in order to engage the interest of the reader.  The use of yellow attracts your attention to parts of the page that are viewed as being of significant interest and it also breaks up the page to make it more interesting for a youth audience to look at.

SFX Magazine textual analysis

For my first magazine analysis I have decided to look at SFX, a science fiction magazine popular with 15-25 year olds.  This is relevant to my preliminary task because it is aimed at a similarly aged audience and I am thinking of film reviews being a part of my magazine, as film is a popular discussion point for students.

The masthead is the name of the magazine, in this case SFX, which is shorthand for ‘special effects’.  This instantly tells the reader that the magazine genre is science fiction because that is the television and film genre that requires the use of large amounts of special effects.  The font used is the same in every issue so that it is easily recognisable to loyal readers.  It is also a sleek style of font, connoting that the magazine is modern and up to date.  The chunks missing from the letters and the blood splatter overlay show the audience that the articles inside may relate to violence and horror.

The model for the central image is Karen Gillan, a young female actress who stars in Doctor Who.  Using a young and attractive female actress for the cover encourages a female audience who may view her as a role model and a male audience who find her attractive.  As she is young she appeals to a youth audience and because she is in Doctor Who, a show aimed at not only the youth but a wider family audience, the magazine will draw in a wider age group for its audience.  As she is dressed in fairly casual clothes it shows us that the magazine is aimed at a moderately wealthy audience, but they don’t have to be rich.  Behind Karen at the top of the magazine is a British flag.  This could be suggesting that the magazine is predominately aimed at an English audience or could be emphasising that Doctor Who is an English television show.

The cover lines are mainly down the sides of the cover so they do not block the central image.  They are also usually in the alternating colours of red and black.  These colours are bold and create a strong contrast.  They also reflect the dark themes that are frequent in science fiction, connoting death, darkness, blood and love.  The use of the puff in the top right corner advertising 148 pages is there to entice the reader into buying because they are getting a lot for their money.  The circular shape used ensures that it stands out from the rest of the cover.  The price of the magazine, shown in the bottom right with the barcode, is £3.99.  This is a reasonably average price for a popular entertainment magazine.  It is affordable for teenagers who are in education and have part time jobs or who still get the odd treat off their parents, and for people who have their own full time jobs.

Overall the magazine appears to be aimed at a wide audience from demographics C1-E.  They will be into film, television and literature, with a strong liking for the science fiction genre.

Rough time frame for the preliminary task

Introduction to Brief

For part of my AS coursework, the brief requires me to create the front page, contents and double page feature spread for a new music magazine.  I will also be doing a preliminary task of creating the front cover and contents page for a student college magazine.  I will be using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to create my work.  This blog is here to record the process from research all the way to evaluation.