Conventions of a college magazine covers

A large, bold sans serif font has been used for the masthead, in a bright yellow colour, a feature obviously designed to catch the attention of the audience. This is the magazine’s logo – its brand identity that will allow readers to recognize it easily. The teller, sell lines and screamers of the articles have been printed on either side of the image of the model. The colour scheme of the magazine is: yellow, black and white. The black and white gives the magazine a smart appearance, whilst the yellow colour gives it vibrancy, perhaps to draw its audience which is college students. Adding to the professional appearance of the magazine cover is the fact that it is not cluttered with graphics. There is only the barcode, and the “Splat!” image.

This particular college magazine doesn’t educate students; but instead it informs them on the lives of students today and what particular concerns they have for example “Why we love Blackberries” in the young generation a great majority of students have a Blackberry device therefore this is what students can relate to.
The target audience of this magazine is clear. It is aimed at the market of professional students. We can tell this from the model. For example; one of the books the model is carrying is titled “Law, Business and Society” – Law and Business are seriously academic subjects.

This is an example of a college magazine, one published by The New York Times. The designers of this cover have gone for a colourful, artistic approach which is giving the cover the overall appearance of a collage, or perhaps a noticeboard where many colourful flyers have been torn off.

There is no model and barcode on the magazine; instead there are a number of artistically torn photographs and images in a variety of styles such as silhouettes. This further adds to the sense of the overall image being of a noticeboard, such as one would find in a college.

The creative and unconventional layout of the cover suggests that the magazine is aimed at students in general. Nothing specific such as art students or academic students.
The main focus of the cover is the masthead, and everything else is small and almost insignificant besides it. This goes against the traditional layout of magazines.

In this magazine, it consists of a photograph of a student at Ridgewater College sitting on a red chair with another empty seat beside her; the empty chair besides her may be used as a subliminal way of trying to welcome you to the college. Below the student, there is a globe which could connote that Ridgewater is a college of mixtures of different people from different parts of the world.
The student from Ridgewater is smiling sitting on the chair in a relaxed position, which gives an impression that the environment at Ridgewater College is a happy and friendly place. The student appears to be in high lighting as there aren’t any shadows in the image, this may reflect how bright the students who study there are.


The main coverline of this magazine is called “Global Learning”; this is displayed on the right side of the magazine in the white and blue colours. It is displayed in bold san-serif fonts, possibly to give a more modern look to the magazine. This coverline also helps to inform the readers about what is featured inside the magazine; is features a story about two students from different sides of the world who made a great conclusion of going to the college for a “Ridgewater Education”. There is another feature of a coverline called “Inside”, where it gives way some more information of what is held in the magazine, “How Dave Farber Made It in the Music Industry”. This can attract the audience’s attention which can lead them to taking interest in the magazine, as it influences them into thinking they can do the same.

The dateline of this magazine is not shown, so the time of is not exactly “Ridgewater College” known. The only thing that mentions some sort of time is the selling line underneath the Masthead, which says; “Willmar and Hutchinson a Community & Technical College Spring 2009”. This gives us the information that it was given in 2009 during March, April and May, it may also suggest that the magazine is a seasonal magazine and not one that is made on a regular basis.



This magazine does not have a bar code; this may be because the college magazine is given away for free. This magazine may be simply handed out in the Ridgewater College by students of members of staff.