The first magazine our teacher handed out was Newman's Newsman!
As Mentioned earlier "Newsman" is the magazine of Newman higher education Birmingham. The perticular issue of which we was analysing was that of May 3rd 2007, this is posistioned vertically on the left of the magazine in white text with a red block behind it. The first thing which catches the eye is the magazine title "Newsman" in its bold white font its thr largest text contained within the page and was contrasted from the back ground. A point which i noted about the name of the magazine was the play on Newman to Newsman the two words sounding rather alike and the only difference being the added "S" in "Newsman". The magazine is targeted at university students which would be attending Newman in Birmingham. In the far right top corner of the magazine was Newman's logo it again contrasted against the back ground yet was smaller than the main title of the magazine. The next point which had to be made was how busy the left hand of the page was, the page seemed gorged in images which didnt seem to show much relavance to the purpose of the magazine. In the bottom left corner was an image of a young boy playing a games console crossed leg wearing some form of hempet with a visor. The boys eyes are hidden yet his mouth seems to show a look of happiness and concentration. Beneath this image is a red box which contains Yello dropshadowed text saying "Video games" and then beneath this lack arrows surrounding white drop text which reads, "could they help reduce childhood obesity". Our whole class agreed that this did not show much relavance to the university students. They were all beyond the age of childhood and therefore the article would not be relavant to them selves. Above this images in a circular overlay is an image of a white piggy bank set upon grass with the back ground fiew of a cloudy summers sky, with a hand dropping money into the piggy bank. However this time there is no text to acompany the image we can only guess that the image is refering to the students finaces and maybe suggesting some sort of money saving scheme however due to the lack fo text there is no proof that this is the meaning therefore there is no way of judging whether the image is relavant of not. Lost within the business of the images is a small section of people listening to a male man, though we cannot make out the age of the group of people listening as their backs are turned though we can see the man to be an older black male, weaing some form of cap and a greeny yellow shirt. Again it is hard to make out the relavance of this image to the purpose of the magazine. Above this image is an overlayed image of what appears to be a young girl which is suggested by her school blue summer dress listening to headphones staring at what is expected to be a computer screen, although the green over lay loses the clarity of this image when looking closely we can see the girl in the images hand postistioned as if holding a mouse or some other implament. Like the young boy from the bottom left of the magazine there appears to be no relavance to the purpose of the magazine and again theres no text to suggest the meaning of the image. To the right of this image overlaying the image slightly is a snapshot of a close up of an extract form a book with the only word which can be made out being the word "Eng'lish" which also contains other character which are not avalaible to use with my keyboard. Below this image is an image of what appears to be a middle aged man, the man seems to be speeking or giving some sort of lecture, therfore i suggested that possibly the man was a lecturer hoever oppostite this man we do see and older fraile looking gentleman who looks rather old, tired yet happy. Again as with many of the other image the image is confussing and lacks text to suggest its significance to the magazine and the target audience. Surrounded by these confussment of images to the right of the cover is the text which is contained within the front cover, the text suggests the contents fo the magazine, though is in a simple informal bullet pointed style format. Unlike the images the text does show relavance to the magazine however the font is lost due to its angle and looks un professional and boring. The font should most certainly be changes and possibly consider revising the colour of font which is used. Beneath this text is another image which seems so show no relavance to the contents or purpose of the magazine, in the very bottom right corner is an image of a child toy, which is guessed to be the hulk, however the toy is positioned on its back with the head being the nearest point to the camera, the toy was as if dead. The main text showing contents of the magazine is in the blue font colour in order to try yo match the image the left of a hand scribing mathamatical symbols onto a black board, this explains the use of black behind this text, in order to show the text to look as if its been scribed onto the black board. Overall the images seem to show little relavance to the purpose of the magazine and cause the audience to become confussed. The colour scheeme is bland and the colours dont seem to follow suit. Often aspects of images which may cause the audience to be able to further make out there meaning are lost due to the odd colour scheme. This whole cover, needs rethinking this includes the fonts, the images and the colour scheme.The second magazine which we had to analyse and annotate was Queen Mary Univeristy of
London's QUAD!
This magazine does not really contain a main focal point however the title is Bold and Contrasts well against the back ground. The title of the magazine is "QUAD" which at first i associated quad with its mathamatical term meaning 4 although it can also be associated as a gatheing or centre square point of a campus. Within this same white box of which the title is contained is the issue number and year of which the magazine in question is published. Within this white box we can also see the target audience stated for this magazine which is the former graduates of the university. This fact is also stated at the far bottom of tha page centered in a small white font which declares "the magazine for the alumni community of queen mart, university of london." Alumni community is a community of former graduates or students. The logo of the university is on the left hand of the front cover towards the bottom, the text and logo are both white on a black background. There are eight images in total contained within the front cover there all . To begin with at the furthest of the top of the page next to the the white block which contains the title and other such information is an image of the queen mary, which correlates to the name of the university. Beaneath this image is another image of what i guess is a class of graduates dressed in their graduate atire, of black and yellow at their graduation throwing their gradution caps in the air in celebaration. The image is take outdoors, and behind them we see an image of trees, in the back ground. This again shows relavance to the magazine as the image is of graduates, and seen as the image is aimed at post graduates. Next to this image to the right is an image of two random people, a black male and female, they are both dressed formally and the male wears a gold coloured garland around his neck. In his hand he seems to be showcasing somthing to the camera, in the background fo the image we see more black males. Though this image seems irrelavant as their is no text to explain their status or their relavance to the purpose. Benath this image is the iage of some sort of stadium all lit up in the night. Again this image shows little relavance to the purpose of the magazine. Benath this image at the bottom of the page is an old photo of back in the day, which would correspond to possibly being an image of members of the Alumni communtity from many many years ago. Beneath the image of the graduates on the elft half is the black box which was mentioned ealrier which contained the names of the three people whose images are contained on the right hand side beneath the graduates picture. The names are in a red font and their reason for being included within the cover in white. The colour scheme for the overall document is red, black and white. Though overall the whole layout is rather simple and block with a contempory theme to it. As with the first the cover ivolves image which show little relavance to the magazines purpose. The editor should consider including some overlay of images and not having every image dead straight horizontal. Although the cover is much clearer than the previous and is therefore a better example than the first.
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