This college magazine cover denotes a colour photograph of an attractive girl in a red top, showing most of her body stopping at just her thighs, not showing her legs. She is standing in a green field. The masthead right at the top of the page is titled “COLLEGE”, with lots of different cover lines such as “smoking salvia” and “she’s 15 and pregnant”. There is also a date and a barcode.The title ‘college’ is coloured red and in son serif giving it a more modern look and making it more attractive to young people who might be interested in collages, the colour stands out from the blurry green behind the writing and the name “college” informs that the magazine is about college and education.
The Mise en scene shows her costume to be a red top which has on it “i love smu” this is regarding the collage she is at, showing that the magazine is going to be talking good things about the college. She is also wearing very short shorts, this connotes that she is relaxed in the environment and its fun. She looks respectable but relaxed at the same time you don’t get any stereo typical thoughts like if she had her hair tied up and was wearing glasses she would look nerdy. She isn’t offending in how she looks or being seductive in any way which would be a bad look, so works well to avoid any disapproval. The cover line next to her quotes ‘a new kind of balancing act’ which suggests she is maybe a gymnast giving the audience an idea of what it’s going to be about.
There are no props in the image which suggest the main article is about her and her top gives enough information.
The girl is showing with her NVC that she is very happy to be there making the collage look like a nice place, giving an inviting felling to the place, her body language suggest she is comfortable and relaxed at the same time. She is looking directly at the camera smiling showing she is happy to be at the campus and on the magazine, suggesting that good things are to be said.
The layout is very well done with the cover lines nicely placed around the main picture. But the colours and size of the text changing in all the sub-headings is quite confusing and the reader could get mixed up with what is important.
The lighting is high key, which connotes an upbeat/summer feel. Unlike what low key lighting on image would do it gives you a happy feel which really contrasts with the other cover lines that are quite negative with things like ‘smoking salvia?’, ‘she’s 15 and pregnant’ and ‘beer in hell’ so you don’t what impression is intended, so is inconsistent which is a big problem when making a magazine. Also the cover lines are very vague so the publishers must have known that the people that where going to pick up the magazine and an idea of what they were talking about.
It says in very small writing next to the barcode ‘100% free’ which is hard to see, which is not a good thing as free things lure people in and doesn’t really make the magazine look good but more just cheap and poorly done. There is no puff or selling line, you don’t really get the point in it and so is quite confusing for anyone looking at for the first time, a reader must be given an incentive to pick up the magazine and that is not really there.
The target audience looks to be anyone with any interest in college life, in particular ‘smu’ which is mentioned. The magazine is targeting current students and is made to inform.
In my opinion this is a well designed collage magazine cover on the visual aspect, but combining this with the problems with the cover lines it is not very well thought about, but it is a college magazine, free and most probably made by students in their spare time, so is on that basis a very high standard collage magazine cover.
