School magazine front cover and contents page By

School magazine front cover and contents page. By Megan Moore

These are all the features which I have added in my front cover page.

Although my front cover page is effective I feel that Chosenhill’s front cover page is more professional looking and therefore, resembles to a school magazine more than ‘NO LIMITS’. My front cover magazine is quite like Chosenhill’s magazine. For example both the mastheads are in the sky line. However, Chosenhill's cover lines are only on the right left whereas, my cover line's are placed throughout the entire magazines front cover, I did this to make the magazine look full of more information. Also, their magazine has a colour theme of blue, white and yellow whereas, mine has a various range of autumnlike colours such as reds and oranges. Furthermore, I feel that my colour themes are more effective than Chosenhill's as they are more eye-catching towards the public.

These are all the features which I have added into my contents page.

I feel that my contents page is more effective than Pensby’s contents page due to it being more brighter in colour and also, my magazine has bolder use of There is not much colours to make the writing stand similarity between these two contents pages. out on the page. The background Pensby’s contents page is a very dull grey and the colours such as the blues and reds do not stand out in the page whereas, the colours in my contents pages stand out more due to the white background. It is also hard to make out the pictures in the Pensby magazine whereas, in my magazine I have only focused on two particular pictures and have not taken away from the actual content.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? • I truly believe that my media product is quite like other magazines, for example the masthead is in the skyline. I wanted it to stay quite traditional as I feel that it would not represent a magazine or look like a real magazine unless it looked like others in it’s category. • I have also put the slogan under the masthead as I feel that my target audience may not realise that it is a slogan if it were not in that particular area so again I kept this very traditional looking. • My cover lines are not only on the third left, I have placed them on various places on my front cover of my magazine in order to give the impression of it looking more full of information. • Furthermore, I have also took away any objects in the images that did not suit the magazine for example, I had to take away the date in the pictures that I used because this would immediately reveal that this is not a real magazine also I covered any marks on the walls and made some leaves more red as some looked to be quite dull and this would almost take away from the image.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? • From my questionnaire I gathered the information that my target will be 16 -20 year old females. Therefore, all the colours, fonts, images and quotes I have added I have made sure that this age group will best react with them. Especially with the content pages mixture of colours in the fonts as I did not want to make the page look dull with only one or two colour themes. • I mixed some fonts together, both formal and informal in order to give more diversity in both my cover and contents pages as this would look more eventful and creative towards my target audience however, most of the fonts are very laid back and also they are very student friendly this will give the magazine a friendly vibe towards the public and ensures that they do not feel intimidated by the magazine. • To ensure my magazine was not intimidating I had to guarantee that each of the models I put into the two pages had a friendly, kind, cheerful and educated expression on their faces. I also feel that on my front cover my model has successfully did all of the above especially as she is dressed quite sophisticated and the red leaves behind her contrast brilliantly and effectively to the yellow on her jacket. • I fully believe that my magazine has obtained a friendly yet educated feel towards it’s potential readers.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? • The best media institution which I feel might distribute my media product is the school in which the models go to. • This is because it has all the relevant news and events within the school and would benefit more as pupils and possibly even the teachers may decide to read it. • It also means that pupils don’t have to go out looking for the magazine as it will be easy to get off the school and would most likely receive more sales if it was available in the school.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? • My main audience is 16 -20 year old females. Everything that I have added in my school magazine is inspired by this age group. • However, other people such as parents and teachers may also be interested in this magazine as they play a huge role in pupils education.

5. How did you attract/address your audience? • I attracted my audience through questionnaires, I made one questionnaire and gave copies of it to twenty people; this is where I found out most of my information and most importantly who my target audience would be. • I found out what they want to see in the school magazine and what kind of style would be most successful towards the public. Foremost, I feel that everything in the magazine is chosen by the people who took part within my questionnaire and who were representatives of their age group. • Therefore, I believe that my school magazine is one which will attract 16 -20 year olds and will be attractive to look at and not be intimating towards those reading it.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? • Throughout the course of my preliminary task I have came across many new technologies, ones that I have struggled with but have learnt to deal with over the course of this task. • For planning my school magazine I had to use different technologies, some in which were new to me for example prezi. I have never used this particular website before and therefore, it took me a while to get use to how it worked, however, after spending some time learning about prezi, I found it a very manageable website to use. • Then when I took photo’s of different pupils around the school in order to get a better variety of images, I then began to use Photoshop, I can easily say that this was technology that took me a very long time to get use to due to all the things you can do with the images and where to find were certain devices where. Furthermore, I also found it difficult to understand what the symbols such as the paint bucket and the different layers meant, although in the end I successfully remembered how to complete things that I needed. • I can confidently conclude that although I found each of the previous quite difficult to begin with, I have now gained the knowledge and skill of working and most importantly understanding these technologies.