Preliminary project - research and planning

Brief research using the internet and social situations suggest that students may favour 'gossip' magazines. This is supported by the layout and colour schemes used in such magazines, the use of many primary colours makes the magazine more downmarket. They use sans serif font to make the appearance more informal, this attracts the target audience. The target audience of students, would appreciate magazines such as these because they may feel more comfortable. Serif font and shades of colour add a certain sophistication and class to a magazine, this would usually appeal to an older audience.The colours and images used effect the success of the magazine because they attract a younger target audience, making the magazine more suitable for students.

All of these magazines use large images as the centre of visual interest. They carefully select images that would attract the target audience. This type of magazine also often uses professional photographs with many of the models looking at the camera, this connotes confidence. The fact that these magazines have used celebrities as the centre of visual interest, draws the attention of the target audience. Many of the students would recognise the images and perhaps would be interested in reading the article featured in the magazine. They use a wide colour scheme with many bold colours, the effect of this is that the aesthetics seem very lively and energetic, again making it more suitable for a younger target audience. The covers of these magazines seem slightly cluttered, it contains lots of text and there is a lack of negative space, this adds to the idea that the magazines are more downmarket.
Actual student magazines follow similar techniques:

These magazines also use a wide colour scheme to grab the eye of the reader and draw attention to its contents. The coverlines focus around topics that would interest the target audience and entice them into reading the magazine, 'revision guide' 'perfect student BBQ'. Similarly, these magazines also use large images of celebrities as the centre of visual interest to entice the target audience. These student magazines use celebrity and music news in unison with student news and offers to satisfy many of the target audience's presumed desires.
The layout of many of the magazines aimed at this target audience tends to be quite cluttered. The cover pages often contain a large number of images and text that are layered and sometimes juxtaposed on an angle; this adds a more informal tone to the appearance.
However, some of these magazines could be considered more upmarket due to the fact that many of the images used are professionally taken. Many of the images are not cropped and contain the original background from when the photograph was taken.
Most, if not all, of the magazines aimed at this target audience, use Sans Serif as their main font. It is common that the title contains more than one colour, whether it be text or background. The main coverlines tend to be written in capitals as this reduces the ascenders and descenders, which makes the aesthetics seem more cluttered and clumsy. This again makes the magazines appear more upmarket, however the extensive advertisement included keeps the magazines downmarket. This is also the reason that the magazines can be kept at a low price, because the advertisements pays for production.