School Magazine - Contents Page

Image and Sub-Headings

  Today I have added an image and subheadings to the contents page of my school magazine. The image is of a girl in my year. I took this image at the same time as the image that I have used for the front cover, therefore it too is in front of a white board. I did this because I wanted a plain white background for this image too. I have also added a border around the image to make it more noticeable and to separate it from the rest of the page. Here is how the image looks:

 

  The next thing that I did was to add sub-headings into the page. I did this so that it will be easy for the reader to know the different sections of the magazine and so that it is not too complicated for them. Here is an example of the first sub heading:

 

 

  I have put it in a blue box so that it stands out from the rest of the text. Again I have used blue and red continuing the theme.

 

Contents Page

Today I have started work on the contents page for my school magazine. So far I have created the title for the page. I produced the title using Microsoft PowerPoint's word art. The letters are blue and red and alternate between either colour. The letters also overlap one another to give a fun and cool look. I also selected the colours blue and red because it brings the colour scheme through from the front cover. Here is how the title looks:

 Putting the school magazine together


   After I had taken my pictures I began to construct my front cover I decided that I would use red and blue as my main colours and carry that colour scheme through to the contents page. To construct the page I used all of the research and information that I had gathered from creating my mock up.

Above is my completed school magazine front cover. In the lesson we all peer assessed eachother's front covers the positive feedback that I received was, "very good anchorage text, the text looks professional and good conventions." However in the negative feedback my assessor said that the mis en scene is poor.

Today we went through the 'marketing criteria for the presentation of the research an planning'. We discovered that we needed to produce at least 80 blog posts to gain full marks and that it counts for 50% of our overall grade. We evaluated the mark scheme and concluded that we needed to focus on:

1) drafts, mock-ups, content of text and demonstration of how you have put it together

2) presentation, as this what attracts the reader (this includes ICT skills)

3) market research

4) Photography

5) Pictures have been properly edited

6) ensure that are blog posts are short, quick and ensure that we break them up. Also be aware of time    
     and time management

Magazine Images



  Once we had finished our mock-ups we then began work on our final school magazine. I brought my own digital camera into school so that I could begin to take the photographs for my magazine. the photographs that I needed were one of a girl with her thumbs up and the other of the head girl. In addition I needed both girls to be sixth formers as that is my target audience.

  For the pictures i used fellow pupils Rachel Callahan and Zantelle Madden. before I decided which pictures to use I experimented using different lighting, backgrounds, camera angles and clothing. once I had taken the pictures i uploaded them onto the computer and assessed each one and considered whether or not they would be suitable for my magazine front cover.

  For example I took the picture above in one of the school's food technology rooms in front of a pull down projection screen. I did this as i wanted a plain white background with no objects or features in the background as i did not want the attention to be taken away from Rachel. For my magazine I will need to get a medium close up shot as at the moment there is too much of her in the image.
  I asked Rachel to look directly down the camera lens as I wanted the effect of her looking directly at the audience. This will make the reader feel like Rachel is engaging and reaching out to them.

School Magazine Mock-Up

The above image is of my completed school magazine mock-up. Our next task after completing the mock-up is to produce our actual School Magazine front cover. This is necessary as in the mock-up I used images sourced from the internet and this is not allowed on our actual magazines.

 Completing the mock-up was necessary as it acted as research for the actual thing. It gave us the opportunity to experiment with colour schemes, images, camera shots, font, text sizes. It also gave me the opportunity to get feedback from other people and my target audience. This will all help my mindset for creating the actual school magazine.

Photography  


    Today our learning objectives were to understand how to frame and take a strong photo and to create a medium close up shot that represents my target audience.

   We discovered that to take a better quality photo you should bend your elbows for a more steady hand. I also learned how to use props so that the light falls correctly in the picture, as shown in the image below.   

 So far in the course I have learnt the different codes and conventions which should be included on a magazine front cover, and how these can make a difference to how the magazine is portrayed.
 Personally I think the main two conventions of a magazine front cover are the mast head and main image. Moreover I think that the main image is an important factor because you should be able to tell what the target audience is, for example if the main image was One Direction people would know that the target audience is young people and music fans.

Furthermore the main image is usually a medium close up shot and taken at eye-level. Therefore if the celebrity in the image is looking directly at the audience it gives a direct address, making it seem personal, making the audience want to buy the magazine.

 The masthead is a very important feature of the magazine as it needs to appeal to the target audience. If the font is too big or too bold then it can make the magazine look cheap and unprofessional. The mast head should also demonstrate the target audience and what the magazine is about.

After I created my mock up for my magazine front cover I assessed it and looked into the strengths and weaknesses of it. I also recruited fellow classmates to peer assess my mock up. After analysing my mock up I realised that there were a few mistakes, such as; spelling, too many different colours (a colour scheme was needed) and it didn't look very professional at all. However a strength was the title, as it was clear from the title exactly who my target audience was.