For this unit, I had to create four pages of a new magazine (Front cover, Contents Page and DPS) aimed for a Sheffield based audience. I chose to make a local events magazine called Steel City Scene, which focused on events taken place across Sheffield. This is a quarterly magazine (released for each season) therefore, for this project I produced the Winter edition. Featuring a range of family-friendly events from Christmas markets to craft classes, I worked to ensure the magazine had a multitude of purposes. I wanted the magazine to inform, educate and entertain, by giving readers accurate information on local events and offering insight into Sheffield’s community and culture through engaging and appealing ways. I aimed the magazine primarily to parents with teenagers in the ABC1C2 socio-economic group. By including activities that both parents and teenagers would enjoy, I wanted the magazine to encourage families to spend more time together and strengthen relationships. I also wanted the Winter edition to feel inclusive to all cultural and religious backgrounds. I did this by not only focusing on Christmas but other events also taken place with no link to the holiday.
Content
Front Cover
The front cover of my magazine follows conventions of a local lifestyle and events magazine because it focuses on community and shared experiences. It was made to appeal to my target audience of parents with teenagers living in Sheffield, which directly meets my brief of producing a magazine for a Sheffield-Based audience.
I changed the main cover image from the wireframe plan to enhance meaning. Initially, I planned to use a wide shot of a family however during production I framed the photograph to be a mid-shot. This made the cover feel more intimate and homely, allowing the audience to focus on our facial expressions and interactions. As planned, I used my own family, including myself, to create a realistic and relatable representation that would appeal to my target audience. Additionally, I ensured we were interacting together (Through body language of smiling and hands over shoulders) that highlighted a natural closeness and warmth. This allows parents to view them as ideal self (Carl Rogers). Additionally, By using a family rather than a celebrity nor model, the cover challenges traditional magazine representations whilst avoiding sexualised imagery. This challenges Mulvey’s Male Gaze (1975).
The masthead is another large feature on the page and follows magazine conventions. To ensure it creates instant brand recognition, I used a blue colour palette and winter iconography from the magazines house style to connote the seasonal theme. Unlike originally planned, there isn’t a slight overlap between the masthead and cover image. Instead, I ensured the snowflake graphic followed up the page to add depth in the design. These choices made the page engaging and eye-catching to readers.
My coverlines and formatting have changed significantly from my original plan. In my final version, I used ‘Little shop of horrors’ with the supporting line ‘The creepy play comes to spook Sheffield’, placed next to ‘Panto Returns’ with the line ‘Snow White takes the lyceum stage’. These coverlines changed from my original: ‘‘Unmissable Annual Panto Returns’. I structured these with a larger main line and a smaller line underneath to give extra information. This structure aligns strongly with conventions of magazines, such as Vogue, who have lots of information to relay. I also changed the coverline ‘20+ events to choose from that are teenager friendly’ into a banner. This creates more visual interest, aligns with magazine codes and conventions stronger whilst allowing me to bring red stronger into the design. I also ensured to include ‘teenagers’ to make it distinctly clear the focus and aim of my magazine- to show teenager friendly events. Finally, as done prior with the other coverline, my main coverline was changed from ‘The Christmas Market is Back!’ into ‘Christmas market’ accompanied by ‘An unmissable Sheffield Staple’. These changes helped my colour scheme become stronger, and created a clear visual hierarchy between coverlines, main coverline and banner. By making them more distinct and clearer, the page became easier to navigate and helped important information (such as the event names) stand out quickly. This strongly reinforced that the magazine is extremely focused on local Sheffield events, allowing the content to feel relevant and appealing to my target audience.
The front cover employs a hierarchy that guides the reader’s eye from the main image towards the masthead and then to the coverlines. This allows important information to be seen first. By using a clear layout, the cover is accessible to both parents and teenagers as it's simple to read. These design choices follow magazine conventions and encourage the reader to pick up and use the magazine, which supports the purpose of my magazine and meets the brief.
Tools
Contents Page
The contents page follows the codes and conventions of a local lifestyle and events magazine by prioritising a simple layout that provided clarity. The word ‘Contents’ is shown as the largest most noticeable element, displayed in a bold sans serif font. This creates a clean appearance and made the page easy to identify for both the parents and teenagers in my target audience.
I organised the information on the page into separate sections based on if it’s a ‘Christmas’ or purely ‘Winter’ event. This layout follows Uses and Gratifications theory (Bluhmer and Katz), as it lets readers to quickly connect to their personal identity, as they can identify efficiently events that match their own interests. It also provides surveillance on local events. This stayed the same as from my wireframe as it was an effective way to meet my brief and help Sheffield's diverse audience engage.
Unlike I originally planned, there is no photo on the contents page. After researching further into content pages, such as Vogue’s November 1991 page, many of them seemed cluttered due to the prioritisation of photographs. Therefore, I wanted to challenge these conventions and included graphics (snowman and burbles) instead. This majorly improved the page. My information became prioritised without being overwhelming and due to the colour and design choices (Interesting border, snowflake background) visually engaging.
Finally, I placed QR code at the bottom of the page to connect the printed magazine to its online version, showing technological convergence. This provides digitally literate parents and digital native teenagers access to additional content and events, which ensures the magazine is useful and up to date throughout the winter season.
Tools
Double Page Spread
My DPS focuses on the Sheffield Christmas Market- linking to my cover lines. The design follows the conventions of a local lifestyle and events magazine as it balances imagery with informative text. The layout employs a clear structure, with images and body text that is separated into columns to ensure readability. The columns also work to not overwhelm the audience and make it appropriate for both teenagers and adults. This follows my brief, as I presented Sheffield-based content in a professional and engaging way.
The first image is a wide shot of the Alpine Bar with the market stalls in front, this established the location and scale of the event. This choice allowed the reader to gain a quick understanding of the atmosphere, which helps them visualise the experience and decide if they were interested. This is particularly effective for my family-focused audience, as parents can judge individually if this event is suitable, without committing time or money. There is a second image of a close-up person interacting with a customer, this shows the human and independent focus of the event. By contrasting the establishing shot, the image balances the overall spread and creates a personal experience. Additionally, the interaction creates warmth and social connection, reinforcing that the market is a community experience. This emotional element encourages readers to imagine themselves participation. Both images are extremely conventional for an event magazine’s DPS.
I chose a clear and direct headline ‘Sheffield Christmas Market’ with a article split into separate columns with a drop capital. This followed the conventions of an event-based magazine headline and article- which links to Patrick Phillips’ theory of genre and comfortable reassurance (1996), as the clear title, familiar layout and structured information meets the audiences’ expectations of an event DPS. By using such predictable conventions, the page is easy to navigate and reassuring, which helps parents trust the magazine and therefore use it.
To further add this credibility, I used a pull quote from the Sheffield City Council–“The market celebrates Sheffield’s great independent traders, with over 80% based locally”. By using an official local source, the article is placed as trustworthy and well-researched, strengthening the magazines identity as being a reliable guide to Sheffield events scene. This also makes the market seem significant to the city’s community, encouraging people to attend it and see it as a worthwhile experience.
Finally, the hierarchy of the DPS was purposely designed to prioritise navigation for my audience. Important information such as ‘Key dates’ is placed in a separate and clearly defined section. This lets readers immediately see if they can even attend the event. This is split by the images in the middle of the page to allow parents to quickly access essential details without reading the full article.
Tools
Review
Many of my ideas changed from my original proposal, the most significant on the front cover and contents. However, the overall purpose and focus of my magazine stayed consistent. At the beginning, I wanted Steel City Scene to function as a Sheffield-based magazine that targets locals and helps to provide a connection to their teenagers through events. However, during production the visual style changed considerably. My house style developed from just using winter blues into a much more controlled seasonal palate that prioritised blue and red. I limited this to four colours in total- two shades of blue and two shades of red. This was a strength of the final product because it allowed the magazine to reflect both the Winter season and more specific connotations of Christmas, making it more suitable for a local events magazine-meeting my brief. I also simplified many of my original design ideas, which was an important strength. Instead of overcrowding pages with too many visuals, I focused on clarity and making a clear hierarchy. This allowed the magazine to follow conventions of lifestyle and events more effectively, meeting my breif.
The front cover changed the most from my original proposal. Although I kept the original intention of representing family life and the shared experience, I altered the framing of the image and the placement, text and layout of coverlines so that the page looked more purposeful. Changing the main image from being wide to mid was especially effective as it made a stronger focal point and made the cover feel more intimate and warmer. This supported the brief, as it positioned the magazine as a clearly Sheffield-based product for families. Changing the coverlines was a major improvement and strengthened magazine’s purpose. In my original wireframe I struggled with placing the text so that is cohesive with the other features, after much alteration I landed on a layout that greatly strengthened the impact of my coverlines. It met the brief effectively by presenting Sheffield-based event information in a clear and accessible way that is appropriate for my target audience. However, an area for improvement is that I could have pushed the local identity further. I could have included references to Sheffield in the design too, rather than just in the written content.
The contents page also changed significantly. My original proposal included more visual elements and relied greatly on imagery. However, during the production, I realised that this risked making the page look cluttered and reduced the clarity of information- which is the purpose of a contents page. As a result, I simplified the composition and prioritised text and graphics instead. This is a strength because it made the page easier to navigate, which is extremely important for a contents page whose purpose is to guide the reader. Replacing the photograph with seasonal illustrations and background features pushed the page to challenge genre conventions of a lifestyle and events magazine contents page, from the usual cluttered and somewhat overwhelming magazine style, into one more minimal and refined. Another strength of this choice was the graphics furthered the connotations towards Christmas, followed the seasons conventions and allowed users to identify strongly which list is for each season. Finally, I changed the colours and capitalisation of text to make certain parts stand out against others, meeting the brief effectively by presenting Sheffield-based event information in a clear way, accessible to my target audience. At the same time, one area for improvement is that the page may be slightly to minimal, which makes areas feel slightly too empty in places. Although the simplicity improves the pages clarity, a little more detail could have made the page feel more resolved.
The double page spread changed the least. From my original proposal, my aim was to provide more information on events and experiences in Sheffield. Because of this, the final spread stayed closer to my original plan, although I still refined the spacing and layout between text and image to align more closely with my house style. This consistency of house style, from fonts to colours, is one of the strongest aspects of the final magazine as a whole, because the product feels unified rather than disconnected. My DPS meets the brief effectively by developing the Sheffield events in more detail, through my article and review sections, which maintains the informative purpose of the magazine. By following my original proposal, the magazine fits the genre as it combines images that are conventional for promoting events, (close-up of interaction between customer and vendor as well as an establishing shot), with informational articles, reflecting the structure of an events magazine. Another strength of the magazine is its pull quote which increases the credibility of the information, allowing my target audience to trust the information. However, one area for improvement is that the page could have included a more striking features to make it feel slightly more dynamic. Even with this in mind, it still works successfully within the magazine and contributes to a final magazine that is more professional and coherent then my original proposal plan.
