Assesment 4 - Prelim - College magazine front cover and mock up contents page

I was given the brief of creating a college magazine for my 2014 prelim task. I worked with another member of the class to shoot the cover image. We used a canon camera and shot a 'mid shot'. I then chose an image and used the programme 'Photoshop', to create the magazine front cover. I selected an appropriate font from the website www.dafont.com, this font was very college based and I used this for my Masthead.

I chose the title, 'HSFC Weekly' for my magazine as it is a college magazine. HSFC is the name of the college and it's a weekly magazine, which makes it suitable and appropriate. I made the magazine free as the target audience is students of the college.

The positioning statement for my magazine is, ''the magazine created by students for students.'' I chose this for my magazine as I think that it's a very welcoming 'slogan'. The magazine would probably be created by students who take Media Studies and are interested in journalism. The target audience then knows that everything inside it is legitimate and not patronising as people in their age group, who experience the same things they do daily have created it.

The cover line for my magazine is ''New to Sixth Form? Look No Further.'' I chose this because it's the start of a new college year and the people whom are starting are obviously anxious about being in a whole new environment from what they're used to. HSFC Weekly will provide them useful tips and advice about the college life.

I chose the most suitable features for my magazine; Meet the Teachers, Subject Guides, Future Options, Term Calendar and Uni Guides. These features are suitable to both first and second years. It gives the first years an insight to what subjects the college also provides if they wish to change their chosen subjects and the second years university guides and future options. This is appropriate as some second years may wish to go to university and some may want to get an apprenticeship. However, they may not be sure where to go or what to look at so HSFC Weekly would provide them all of the useful details.

Overall, I think that my magazine prelim front cover has went well as it was my first time ever creating one and I had hardly any skills in the programme Photoshop. It's nothing spectacular but it ticks all of the suitable boxes. I would change my cover image and I would also provide more magazine conventions such as; a dateline and a puff.


To meet the dead line I had to rush my contents page. I created it using the programme Microsoft Word. Originally, I used the same fonts as my front cover but when uploading to 'SlideShare' they got changed to standard word fonts. I chose an image of the College's atrium from google images and placed it underneath the contents list.

I do not think that this contents page is suitable for my magazine prelim. It's very plain and not aesthetically pleasing in the slightest. It includes a list rather than page numbers and I would redo it if given the opportunity.