Aquinas magazine evaluation

My college magazine doesn't flood with detail and has a fairly simple layout. I didn't use too many colours and only added certain colours in certain different parts for example the pug that has an offer on it is yellow, one to stand out and but also to be different to the other colours. The colour writing blends in with the colour of the photo / what the cover star  is wearing which I think is quite a good effect as it fits in well with the image. The background colour is simply white and I think this allows other colours to stand out, for example the masthead being bold and black.

I liked the idea of having an image coming off the main image on the front cover to relate to it, and also to add more detail. The main cover story both relates to the producer of the band and the actual band itself so it was important to have both on the front cover so people find it believable and people want to learn more about it.

The secondary cover stories in my magazine relate to my research that I conducted in class, and I think they are good stories to use as they relate to college and to teenage life; two fundamental aspects of my magazine. As well as this, the stories in my magazine relate to peoples future, which I think is something many college students will be thinking about and taking action on. The magazines aim is both to entertain and to educate, but I aimed it to be more informal than formal - an example being the main cover story containing 'Aquinas' hottest new band.'I think my magazine has a good offer / competition on the front cover, offering a free river island giveaway; relating to my research and also linking to students as an important purchase for them would be clothing.

I aimed my masthead to be bold and simplistic as I think many magazine mastheads are like that and don't aim to be too fancy as it can make the magazine look unprofessional and can be a bit confusing as a bold masthead can draw the reader in more directly.

What I would change

To my improve my magazine I think I could use up more space and possibly add more detail to it as I think it can look quite minimal but I was stuck on what to include on it, and I figured that maybe a minimal look might be a beneficial look.

Another thing that could have been interesting would be making my own background for my magazine. Although I chose to go for a simple look and keep the background white I think it would have been interesting to see what my magazine would look like with another background.

If I had more interesting images, or images that related to my cover stories I would have liked to include more images on my front cover to take more space up but also to add more detail to the front cover for the reader and to make the stories more visual rather than just writing on the page.

My contents page takes a similar colour scheme to my front cover, as they interweave I think this creates a consistency to the magazine which I think should be visible in a front cover and contents. As well as this I generally wanted them to look similar to create a theme and so they don't look miles apart. The masthead is the same as it is on the front cover, and is places on the left page above the main contents.

There are two sides to the contents, the left is based more around regular things that the magazine includes - an example being deals of the month or reviews of new music and media. The right handside contains features for example my main cover story which is the main subject of the features section. I was influences by mojo magazine when doing my contents as they also had a features and regulars page, and I think this is a good way to divide articles and make things easier to find as thats what contents are about.

I liked the idea of having a subscriptions section in my contents, where readers can find out more about how to buy the magazine every month - this also included an offer where aquinas students could get 50% off the magazine.

I liked including an editors letter in my contents as it let readers get an insight into some of the things included in the magazine and an insight into the editors mind and what the editor was thinking when making the magazine, as well as this it gives off a friendly feel and makes readers feel they are part of something.

What I would change

I may have included more images and more detail in the contents, however I was happy with the outcome of having a simple layout. I feel there could have been more things included in my contents to fill in gaps but I feel that I have said most things I wanted to.

I would include more page numbers on images that I used in my contents, as sometimes I don't think its been made clear what the images are related to.