Audience Research

I created a questionnaire about what students would like to see in a college magazine and distributed this around the selected college. I asked questions about the appearance of the magazine as well as the content. The results showed me that event listings were a very popular idea within my target audience, this influenced my decision to put the font for events and gigs in bold boxes as they will stand out more to appeal to the majority of my target audience.

I also analysed other college magazines to see what was effective and what wasn't. I enlisted the opinions of my target audience to see which ideas appealed to them the most. By analysing pre-existing magazines I found out which generic conventions should remain the same on most magazines and which conventions can be broken or played with. I decided that although the masthead being at the top of the page was a convention that could be changed to give more personality, in the case of my magazine it would be best to leave it at the top as it makes clear to the audience that the product is a magazine not a leaflet or hand out. I also discovered that my target audience preferred one main image to lots of little ideas and images, I used this idea for my cover.

Although my target audience were fond of quirky ideas for magazine covers I believe for a college magazine they may be a little restricting on the target audience (too personal), therefore I chose a more classic form.