Monday, 10 October 2011

Market research evaluations

Student Life



 The masthead of ‘student life’ on the magazine is big and bold so your eyes are drawn to it when you first see the magazine. The main image underneath the masthead isn’t very interesting. It doesn’t focus on one particular person so we aren’t really drawn to it and our eyes sort of overlook it. It also gives us a bleak first impression of the college as it isn’t a very cheerful picture. The story on the picture is given a very brief and un-interesting heading. It also blends in a little with the photograph making it a little difficult to read. The colour scheme on the magazine uses two house colours, black and white. They work well together though are a little dull and a third colour may have made the cover more interesting. The magazine requires no price or barcode because it is free. The line ‘Media students in Berlin’ is used to tell us about the picture but it doesn’t give us much information about it like why they’re where in Berlin and what they were doing.
 The magazine is produced by the east riding college to promote itself.
 The cover shows the college as one that does interesting things like travel however; it doesn’t give us a positive impression due to the people on it facing the other direction. It doesn’t make them seem very friendly.
The magazine is aimed at students who attend the college and wish to find out what is happening in the college. It is also aimed at students looking for a college and trying to tempt them to come to this one by showing them what they could do if they did.
The cover doesn’t really represent students accurately. It shows them as kind of depressed and anti-social. This is because they are all wearing hoodies whilst facing away from the camera. The picture is also take as a long shot so we don’t have a close up on any of them and can’t identify what students who go to east riding college are like.

The contents page adds a third house colour to the previous black and white. The colour added is a bright green which does stand out. The contents page gives us vague teasers as to what is inside the magazine through pictures around the side. This is good however it is difficult which image goes with which story on the contents table. The stories aren’t really set out in an interesting way, rather just a list of stories in black writing one after the other. It isn’t obvious which picture goes with which text, in some cases it looks like there is no text to go with the picture.
To improve the contents page could of listed bigger stories more prominently in a separate section and maybe had text relevant to the pictures underneath them to act as anchorage.
Grimsby College
The masthead on the Grimsby college magazine is large and in an interesting, eye-catching font. It is also easy to read. The main image of the magazine cover is small in the corner though it is a close up shot which helps us see the person in it better. They’re also other images on the cover that are large and easy to see but these aren’t to do with any story. The house colours on the cover of the magazine are blue, white and grey. These colours work well together however some of the blue text is difficult to read when put on a grey background though it is only done to remain within the house colours. On the cover there is no visible barcode or price which leads us to the assumption that the magazine is a free one. The teaser stories are well placed at the bottom near pictures they associate with however they are slightly difficult to read due to the colours used.
 The magazine is clearly produced by the Grimsby College to let students know what is happening in college. It does this by reporting stories and events which are happening in the college and these things are what the students need to know.
 The picture at the bottom right of the magazine doesn’t really show students as happy as the college as the student’s expression looks unhappy which may give the cover a negative vibe.
The contents page of the magazine is a lot more colourful adding several new colours like green, pink, black and orange. This does make it slightly difficult to read but the contents page is more eye-catching because of it. The pictures alongside the contents are relevant to what is listed and it is easy to associate stories with the pictures that are about them.
The main topic in the contents which are the ‘School Leaver Courses’ is in the darkest colours on the page. It makes it stand out less than the rest as our eyes are drawn to the brightest colours first.  To be more effective the contents table could be listed more interestingly and the leaver courses section could be made more prominent.

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