College Magazine Research

The purpose of a College magazine is to capture the life of a student and to offer tips and tricks to help students through difficult times. It offers a look into student life that will be very relatable to most students. It also takes the edge off of serious topics by adding humour and colloquial language that teens and young adults will be able to understand and interpret - maybe even apply to their own situations. It is also about giving advice, allowing the students to understand different perspectives of college life but also using it an an incite to the events and amusements that are happening around the campus and near the campus.

All College Magazines are bold and colourful, this is deliberate with the intention of capturing the audience and keeping it fresh and interesting to the younger generation. After all, college students are more likely to walk past a black and white newspaper as it does not look appealing, interesting or relatable.

The masthead is completely block capitals are colourful in order to stand out on a shelf when it will be amongst other magazines. The layout of the cover is very important and it has to have a student who is happy and a high achiever as well to promote a healthy and happy self image whilst at college - the ideal student - in a way, which is compelling to others who may be struggling or readers who are finding inspiration from other peoples stories.

 

 

The strap lines on College magazines have to be compelling and interesting to the reader.

For example; 'Avoid Sleeping Your Way To The Top' is a very hard hitting line as it is expressing many students will 'sleep around' in order to get good grades and 'extra curricular activities e.g extra credit' but do so in a manipulative way. Especially in America, 'sleeping your way to success' is a frequent occurance on their reality shows or television programmes such as comedy as they are not suggesting that these actions work. This is a humourus twist on the comedy subject as underneath the strap line it says 'Networking 101' the '101' suggests its everything you need to know in order to be successful on your own and how to tackle obsticles in the networking field, as nowadays most coursework and deadlines are now required to be produced on the computer - it is a slight pun on technology but allows the strap line to be eye catching and thought provoking.

 



'10 ways to Survive your Dorms' is immediately addressing the difficult transfer college students face at the start of the academic year, there are always the typical anxieties and worries of not getting along with people in your dorms, mixed sex dorms and personality clashes, financing, budgeting and enjoying student life - this article would give tips and tricks on everything from budgeting and finance loan advice, to how to avoid silly arguments and different clashes that may make living with some people difficult, it is all about making the readers student life a lot better, more comfortable and extremely managable.

For my magazine, I am interested in adding some humour that is slighly colloquial to students and young adults, also using colourful text and striking backgrounds. I plan to make my magazine as interesting as it can be and professionally layed out. I will be taking some tips and tricks of my own from the research I have done on the college and music magazines in order to provide my readers with the most interesting magazine that is enjoyable and informative to the best of my ability. My questionnaire that I have produced will also play a big part as I will get to know my target audience better and figure out what they are most interested in reading and finding out, also their interests, what I can do to appeal to their interests as a reader as well.