Evaluation

Final School Magazine Contents Page

For my contents page I just used similar theme to my front cover and made sure it all went well and looked like it would be in the same magazine. I found it hard to find a colour for the contents writing that would show up on the brick background, so  asked a few people and everyone said white.

Final School Magazine Front Cover

I took into consideration the most popular answers in my questionnaire and I put together my front cover. I really like the masthead because it is different and memorable so people know what the logo is for, the main colours also mix well with it. Even Though it is a school magazine and looks like it is to do with school, it still has a young adult/teen feel to it, which can mean more students and maybe even sixth formers will buy it.

Photo Shoot Pictures

These are a few of my photos from my photo shoot and I will use a couple of them for my front cover and contents page.

Research Analysis

I collected my question aires back in and this is an updated version of the questionnaire, I have highlighted which answers got the most votes.

I am now going to start working on my final magazine design.

Questionnaire

I created a questionnaire for people to answer so I understand what will appeal to students, my target audience. I will give out around 100 questionnaires to a random selection of the school, collect them back in and then analyse the research to find out what is going to be the best way to sell my school magazine.

Conventions

A Convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, often taking the form of a custom. Here are a few conventions that are to do with a magazine's front cover and contents page;

Front Cover:

• Cover model should look straight into the camera. Eye contact is important.

•  When designing a cover you can play around, you can exaggerate, but you should remain within your concept and style and you should know what to exaggerate.

• Each cover needs one headline that will pop out. In size, in color, in attitude.

• The cover page should have a focus point. It can be a model in the image it can be a headline or a number, but something has to draw the eye.

• Divide your cover in three sections. Big one with main cover line, smaller one with few cover lines and the smallest one with few more cover lines.

• If you plan to use orange color for the cover lines print them with additional spot color. Orange never looks good if printed in traditional CMYK process. It will look brownish.

• Green is the least used color on cover pages and red is the most used one. Whichever you use, make sure you have a contrast between colors.

• They say black covers do not sell. They are wrong.

• For smaller cover lines, preferably go with black text or white if the background is dark. For bigger ones use colors.

• Masthead’s position is not a sacred one. If you think you can achieve something, for example boost sales with a cover line above the masthead than go for it. Move the masthead little bit below and add some cover line above it even if you have never done it. This can be great if your magazine is tucked away on the shelves. This extra space can be useful.

• In USA magazines are racked in waterfall presentation so the top third of the magazine is the most visible part and there you will see the biggest cover lines. In Europe it is the different story. Over here magazines are stacked so that the left third of the magazine is the most visible one. This is why there are so many magazines in Europe with masthead in top left position.

• Photography looks better and sells more than illustrations on the cover page.

• It does not matter if you shoot the cover model in your studio or if you buy stock photo of a model background has to be in solid color. Any patterns or mixing colors in the background will make your life hell when designing a cover page.

Contents Page:

•  One main image relating to the feature article

•  Other small images, usually up to 4

•  Colours – contents page use the same, simple colour scheme as the front cover

•  Images should take up 50% of the page

•  Images should contain Page Number and Anchorage Text (Description, occasionally a Pull Quote)

•  Structured layout should include 1-3 columns

•  Usually divided into categories and headings e.g Main categories – features and regulars
features in different font/border as its special

•  Contents items - Bold/Italic titles in size 12/13pt - Description in size 11/12pt

Top of the page

•  name of magazine, issue date and word contents

Various places

•  Subscription and contact information

•  Issue date/ month

•  Social Media Info

•  Photographer Credits

•  Sometimes there is a letter from the editor

•  Sometimes there is an image of the front cover

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Plans

For my school magazine I decided to plan out how I would like it be to, so these are my layouts and while I create my Front Covers and Contents Page I will use this to help me.

Mode of Address

Mode of Address is explained in this slideshow, it helps you understand what a magazine does to draw attention to itself.

Colour Wheel

This Colour Wheel shows you what colours compliment your theme. Colours that you should or shouldn't use together, when making a magazine. This  mainly involves primary colours.

10 Commandments of Typography

This photo shows a table of the 10 commandments of Typography. Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing, letter-spacing, and adjusting the space within letters pairs.

My Typography Feedback

I received some feedback from my different titles on Twitter and they all chose the third font, so I will be using that one as my title for my school magazine. This is a screenshot of my twitter notifications and the comments people left behind.

Typography

These are the three types titles for my magazine front cover, I am going to upload them to Twitter to get feedback on which one is best suited for the magazine.

My Bridging Unit

This is my analysed Magazine front cover.

This is my analysed Magazine contents page.

This is my analysed School Magazine front cover.

This is my analysed School Magazine contents page.

School Magazine Info.

A school magazine is a magazine that is specifically targeted at students and teachers in their own school. Usually the magazine contain events happening inside the school, achievements from the students and anything else they would like the school to know quickly.

If it is a public school then the magazine sometimes created by students from that school and it isn't very professional, but it works well because its appeals to their age group, therefore they will buy it. If it is a private school then the school magazine is usually made by a professional company and sent out to all students teacher and parents to inform everyone about everything going on in and outside of school. It is an easy way to get the information out to the parents instead of sending out letters all of the time and the Mode of Address will be more formal.