My College Magazine Contents Page

My magazine contents page uses real media products as it follows stereotypical conventions of a real magazine contents page. This is shown by its images, article layout and page direction. This therefore would use real magazine layout which would therefore connote that its contents page was produced by a professional publishing company.

My contents page develops conventions of real media products as it uses image layout in a similar concept to other media magazines such as FourFourTwo. This can be developed by categorising my magazine into certain sub-sections that are related with other articles within the magazine. This would help certain readers who only want to read specific sections of my magazine.

My contents page challenges forms and conventions of real media products as it contains large scale images which help give the reader little previews as soon as you open the cover. This therefore would challenge other magazines because if you were to see this contents page compared to one that looks more like a published shopping list, then you would get the immediate impression that this magazine has been specifically made in the way it has to keep you interested after the front cover. All readers want to be constantly interested so I felt that a visual contents page was a good way to enforce this ethos.  

My contents page represents the social groups of college students as its layout is meant to appeal to them rather than a middle-aged upper class adult. I have done this because my target audience are students aged between 11-18 so it is vital my contents page is blatantly intended to be designed for them.  Readers look for magazines that have been specifically designed for people of their age and social class so by doing this within my contents page then readers will realise that this is aimed at college students. 

The institution of colleges and local newsagents would stock my magazine based on its contents page. Based on the fact that my magazine is aimed at college students and their local communities, I feel that my magazine could not be massed produced all across the country but can be modified to suit a wide variety of other colleges. This would make local newsagents and communities happy as it makes it appeal more to them that only local retailers are stocking my magazine. This would make communities embrace its local people as they will have more relatable subjects to talk about with them.

My contents page represents my target audience of college students aged between 11-18 as the articles and images on the contents page are relatable to my target audience. I have purposefully done this because my target audience want to see articles that would interest them and fulfil their expectations and requirements. Students want to know what is going on within their local college so by featuring the key articles on my contents page, I am therefore attracting my audience even if they are nowhere near the article they are particularly interested in. By only featuring certain articles I am also leaving an element of surprise and suspense with the articles that I have left out.

My contents page attracts my target audience as I have used a mixture of text and images to publicise my key articles. I have done this to give my audience more of a visual snippet to some of my articles and to show the style of articles my magazines contain purely by imagery. Audiences like to be able to visualise what their reading rather than staring at words so I feel that I have successfully achieved that in my contents page. 

From the process of this construction, I have acquired a higher level of knowledge when it comes to marketing and producing contents pages. I have also gained a better understanding on layout and stereotypical features within contents pages. By learning these elements I will be able to add more variety when it comes to producing more contents pages for magazines in the future.