LO4: Evaluation

The purpose of my magazine is to get young people 16+ to explore exactly what Sheffield has to offer. Whether this be new students to the area or simply just those local whom are looking for some different things to try out in their free time. However mainly the focus is to engage younger people in educational activities, music events and introduce them to the cities favored eateries, but above all to inspire them to make a difference. Some sections of the magazine are to be used for guidance to those reading, with small sub sections on life at college/university and related scenarios such as mental/sexual health and events happening in the area. The magazine is aimed toward the C2DE social group, the justification for this is that students and young people rarely have a high disposable income due to other commitments or simply lack of employment hence why promotional material for the magazine will include money off vouchers or free admission to events. The brief set by SPH (sheffield publishing house) was to make a Sheffield magazine, i chose a entertainments magazine.

As part of the production of this magazine i have created a double page spread , contents and cover page which have given insight into what is available in the magazine and clear conventions of the

genre. For this i chose my star persona, Abby Betts - a young female Sheffield born musician, i took photographs of her in the style of other magazines and have used her likeness on all of the pages to create inference as to what is on the double page spread. On my front cover as said in my proposal i have placed my star persona central to the page and large to connote her importance in this issue of the magazine. In aim to make my magazine hold more resemblance to other well known magazines of the same/similar genre i changed my original masthead ideas to a bold sans serif black font featuring a line running behind anf through the text which was drawn exactly to the route the 120 sheffield bus takes hence tying in the name of the magazine with other well known sheffield systems.

The image for the front cover was taken portrait with a shallow depth of field to connote importance whilst also having a sense of intimacy between the reader and the star which will be particularly favoured by teenagers aged 16 as specified as part of the age range. I chose Abby with the view that she would be highly relatable for young people who are currently finding education difficult, within the body copy for the double page spread this is made more obvious when she is talking about education and spurring others like herself on to greatness. This provides the 'ideal' self which is so commonly favoured in magazines of this type as young people will want to have the same aspirations as this woman - and it is likely given with the target audience they will be around the same age.

Throughout the production i have adhered to the house style i proposed to use from the outset, using colours associated with the various forms of public transport Sheffield has to offer which helps associate choice of name. I purposely used a plum/pink which is generally associated with being daring , with occasional flashes of grey to connote the industrial heritage of the city (steel city), i have also used yellow which connotes a sense of rejuvintion and happiness whilst also relating strongly to the 'yellow route' tram line . By using both pink and yellow i have related strongly to both males and females especially given yellow being a stereotypical unisex colour - these colours have been used throughout the pages i have made in order to create synergy. The link to the use of public transport will appeal directly to the C2DE social grading of which this magazine will be most popular as it is more than likely that they will be frequent benefactors of it. The use of the colour purple as mentioned before is meant to connote the magazine is daring and in somewhat outspoken which is reflected in the 'your say' section on the contents page , this will further encourage young women in particular to have a voice and speak out. Because my target audience runs up to and past 18 years of age, i have appealed directly to this by creating banners on winning nights out in sheffield, 'with venues exclusive to ONE20', this gives a personalised feel to the magazine which will be favoured by the older end of the target audience

The top column of colours allowed me to refer back to my
house style and make sure the right colours were being
repeated.

Alongside the content on the cover page of my magazine, I have included into my contents page headings which relate not only to the cover page , but the double page spread also - this is again adhering to conventions of a standard magazine as this level of continuity would be expected throughout. In addition to this, the headers on the content page also clarify the genre as they include reference to local places of interest and local dialect, this will appeal directly to the target audience as there is some level of humour what with use of local dialect words such as 'reyt' and colloquial language is often a common way of communication between young people - This has made the magazine more tailored to the needs of the target audience and brief.
During the production of my contents page, i kept in contact with the brief by continuing to use the house style colours, i used the swatch tool on Adobe Photoshop to ensure that my colours stayed the exact same throughout all of the pages. As planned on my contents page i have included snippets of information for other pages implied within the first issue of the magazine this is again to reinforce that the magazine is based around Sheffield as the brief required and covers a variety of topics much like a local entertainments magazine would be. On my cover page i created banners intended to draw in the target audience , giving the opportunity to win a night out, and a chance to headline the Leadmill which are both things in reference to the reader profile that a ONE20 reader would be attracted by. To create these banners i simply used the rectangle tool, and the paint bucket again using the swatch tool to refer to the correct colour to create synergy.

I have rearranged the layers in InDesign
so that the star persona is in front of the
text - this connotes importance 

My double page spread features a Sheffield born cover artist wearing an outfit of her choice as to encourage self expression, this provides a sense of leadership for young people to follow. The star has been posed to the right of the body copy large to connote importance, the size of the image is important as it has enabled her to look directly at the pull quote from the interview. The image has been taken in a photographic studio on a white background to help her stand out against the other daring colours used as part of the house style. The cover lines have been written in a bold black sans serif font with emphasis on the word 'Glastonbury' which has been done in a different colour with a drop shadow of the same house style colours. The fact this word has been done in yellow connotes that this is a star event which further implies the model is a star, the fact it glows to give a 3D effect brings it closer to the reader and has been done so to draw the music lovers into the main body copy. The pull quote featured as the cover line 'I'd snatch the hands off glastonbury if i were selected' shows to other young people that this girl close to living her dreams and although she is still in education, has set her sights as high as Glastonbury festival. On my double page spread i added multiple transparent rectangles in house style colours as seen on the WePop example of Cher Lloyd, it is important that i followed these conventions as the target audience of WePop is similar to that of ONE20 what with it being primarily female. I created these in photoshop using the opacity and rectangle tools - i again used the colour watching tool to keep the shades of pink/purple and yellow the same throughout the entirety of the magazine.

 I used the Drop shadow effect on the cover lines to make the word 'Glastonbury' stand out and appear to be three dimensional.

To get this glow i maintained a small size and spread so that the purple stayed close to the lettering all the way around. This catches the attention of the readers and reinforced the genre.

Throughout the process of creating my magazine , Some elements were subject to change to further adapt to suit the target audience. On my original annotated visualisation diagrams, I outlined plans for how the magazine would look in terms of layout, this changed when further analysing other magazines of a similar genre and target audience as it was seemingly fitting to take elements from successful existing publications to make mine as authentic as possible. This meant changing the ideas for my photoshoot, I still took a variety of images, however composed them as to pastiche existing examples.