Comparing two different College magazines.

Front cover. South Birmingham’s college magazine is a bit too formal for students in my opinion, but the front cover, in my opinion, is very good but bland. It has bold colours that feature throughout the magazine, therefore having house style, it not only has a big expressive image at the top, it also has other smaller images giving a feel for what subjects they do at the college, making you want to read more and find out more about the college. Everything about this front cover is bold and eye grabbing. The criticism I would give to this front cover is the ‘South Birmingham College’ logo should be bigger and I think there should be some sort of skyline that draws students in. Also

compared to the next College magazine, it’s a bit boring, a potential to push people away.

Compared to South Birmingham’s to Bishop Auckland College and it’s in another league. Bishop Auckland College not only has all the good features of South Birmingham’s college magazine, but it also has a lot more. It has bigger, brighter colours throughout the magazine, drawing people in, as specially students. It has more interesting and bolder images and fonts, again, drawing more people in. It also has what it think the above magazine lacked, a catch line, something for the students to read, that will stick in their heads; ‘Big on

choice, Big on new facilities, Big on support’, this is very effective in my opinion. This magazine is not as formal as South Birmingham’s, which I think is a very good thing because students don’t generally relate, or want to read very formal magazines.

Contents page . This contents page is very effective because it has a very strong link to the front cover. It also has a clear list of what feature in the magazines, and because all the features in the list are in different colours, it makes it easier to read therefore when someone scrim reads it they won’t get bored; certain pages may jump out at them, making them want to read more. What I would say on the bad side of the contents page is, the picture of the women doesn’t look like she would be a student, and if it was a photo of a student

it may make the majority of people reading the magazine (students) feel like they want to read it or attend the college.

This contents page again is a lot more effective than the South Birmingham’ contents page, for the same reasons as the front cover is more effective than

the south Birmingham’s contents page, for example bold colour, effective picture, font’s, wording. It seems as though this particular college did a lot of audience research to see what the target audience (students) would relate to and would make them want t read in a magazine.