School Magazine Cover

Deadline for School Magazine Cover

The deadline for the school magazine cover is Friday, October 7th 2016. The cover should be posted on your blog with a commentary. Look at the example on the school blog.


You must use Adobe InDesign to create your cover and save the document as a JPEG.

Draft of School Magazine

Upload your draft of a school magazine cover with a commentary by Friday, 30th September 2016

A Grade Example of Research - Magazine Analysis

School Magazine Development and Commentary

I have called my magazine 'School Gossip'. I chose this name because it highlights a pupils secondary school life as a whole. The colour scheme of my masthead is Black and Yellow, I used these colours as they represent the schools traditional colours and I feel that they will attract the audience as well as using the word 'Gossip'. The stroke around the text is yellow and stands out around the black writing, I used this because the yellow shows and highlights the main purpose of the magazine by suggesting that inside the magazine there will be gossip within the school. The mast head is large on my front cover as it helps stands out to the audience.


For my main image which dominates the front cover I took a photo of a year 7 pupil called Katie. She is representing the story of how the year 7's are settling into King Henry.  I took a medium shot of this pupil and removed the background.  Before removing the background  there were tennis courts where Katie was stood, removing the background sing Photoshop allowed the image to be focused on her. The pupil is wearing a sports kit which shows her interest in a certain subject.

I have used three subsidiary images that are all each turned at a 15 degrees angle or -15 degrees angle and overlapping each other. I have used these types of images to show the other contents within the school magazine.

The first image I used was of King Henry's main reception, I used this image as a representation of a welcome back to the school.  You will also see a repeat of the colours Black and Yellow which shows more of the meaning of the colours in the masthead and also helps carry on the colour scheme.


The second subsidiary image I used is a medium two shot of year 7 pupils in a music room, we know this because we can see keyboards and music posters in the background.  This image could suggest the talent the school can offer, we can also see that the pupils enjoy this subject to their happy facial expressions in the image.

The last image I used is of two sixth formers, we know they're sixth formers as they're not in the school uniform.  These students are stood outside upper school hall which is used as the sixth form area where they spend there study periods, breaks and lunch times. I used this image to show that there will be a section of the magazine on sixth formers and that the magazine is aimed at the whole school community and not just the majority.  The facial expressions of these students show that they're bubbly students and enjoying being in sixth form.



On the right of my front cover I used five sell lines,  this indicates the contents of the magazine. I used Black writing and I have also used a line to divide the contents up and made it yellow to fit in with the Black and Yellow theme. I did this to show that they will not all be on one page and that there will be different stories.  I also used a different font for the sell lines and made them bold so that they stand out next to the main image. I made sure that the text was a reasonable size so that it stands out and is readable to the audience.

 

 

Magazine Cover before further editing

This is the first draft of my magazine cover before editing and adding more features to my front cover. I also added a header bar and a footer bar to show the latest content and to show the target audience of the magazine.

 

 

While editing my front cover further I decided to add an issue number and a price,  I did this so that the customer has an idea of the price they will be paying and the number of magazine that have been issued through the school year.

I also decided to put in a Pull Quote and a Splash. I used a Pull Quote to give the reader a preview on what the pupil has said. I also used a Splash to give more of an idea of where the quote came from.  I think this is a good idea because this may bring the reader to understand the main story in the magazine and will bring the reader in to bring it.

Completed Front Cover

The front page of my magazine has a clear and organised layout.  It isn't too cluttered or messy, and is presented well. My front cover shows information about school life which would appeal to my target audience who are pupils and students in King Henry.  I believe that my front cover is recognisable to the school as it uses the traditional colours.

I am pleased with how my magazine front cover has turned out. I feel its inviting to young pupils. They layout I have used is effective and works well with my main image. I like the way I have tilted and overlapped my subsidiary images as I think its effective. I am also pleased with my main image as I think it works well on the page. However, I had to resize the image to make it larger due to a lot of blank space on the page.  I think it now looks better as its more presentable and filled.

AS Preliminary Task

School Magazine Front Cover

The preliminary task is designed to help you learn the basics of page layout and design. You will not achieve a mark for the finished product, but if you do not complete the task, then fifteen marks will be deducted from the main task, the four pages of the music magazine.

You need to think about the following codes and conventions when you design your front page.

The Masthead

·        What is the name of the magazine?

·        What are the connotations of the masthead?

·        Is the colour scheme of the masthead appropriate?

·        Is the masthead a sufficient size?

Images

·        What is the main image on your cover? It should be a medium close-up (head and shoulders shot) of an appropriate model.

·        Is the main image an appropriate or conventional size?

·        Does the main image give a clear indication of the story that it is representing?

·        Is the composition of the main image clear on the page?

·        You should try to include at least one subsidiary image.

·        Is the subsidiary image an appropriate size?

·        Has the subsidiary image been placed in an appropriate position on the page?

·        Does the subsidiary image give a clear indication of the story that it is representing?

Language

·        You should use sell lines on the front cover in order to give the reader an idea of the stories that can be found in the magazine (Should be at least 3)

·        The sell lines should give a clear indication about the main stories within the magazine and should appeal to the target audience. The splash for the main story should be an appropriate size and positioned carefully on the page

·        The language should be informative and entertaining.

·        You should try and use literary devices in order to make your cover more interesting. E.g. puns, alliteration, etc.

·        Spelling and punctuation must be accurate.

·        You should use a range of appropriate fonts. (At least 2)

·        The font size should be clear and appropriate.

·        You should use a consistent and appropriate colour schemethat appeals to the target audience.

Layout and Design

·        The layout of the front page should be clear and well organised.

·        The front page should appeal to the reader.

·        The design of your front page should be recognisable as the front cover of a school magazine.

 Key Tasks to Complete During the Planning Stage

1.    Analyse the front cover of at least three different types of magazine. Try to identify the key codes and conventions of layout and design.

2.   Plan your ideas for your front cover. Think about the following: Masthead, Sell Lines, Strap Lines, Slogan, Main Image, Subsidiary Images, etc.

3.   Create a rough draft of your magazine front cover.

4.   Complete the planning documents to plan your photo shoots.

6.   Take your photographs. You will need to book the camera if you are using school equipment!

7.   Edit your photographs using Photoshop. You should spend a minimum of 1 hour using Photoshop.

8.   Create your cover using Adobe Indesign or another suitable Desk Top Publishing Programme. You will need to book your sessions in the media room. You should aim to spend aminimum of 3 hours using Adobe Indesign.

9.   Evaluate your front cover.

10.                You should update your blog at every stage of the production process. Remember to save jpegs that show every stage of the development of your pictures and cover.

School magazine covers from jonesjrah1973

Media studies presentation 2015 lesson 1 2016 from jonesjrah1973

AS Media Coursework

Print Production

Preliminary Exercise

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally, candidates must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Research and Planning

Before you start to create your front page, you will need to research the codes and conventions of magazine front covers. This will involve analysing how front covers are designed and how they communicate with the target audience. You will need to study the layout, masthead, images and text in order to understand how magazine front covers work.

You will also need to carry out some market research into the target audience for your magazine. This will involve creating a questionnaire in order to find out the views of the audience which will enable you to include content that will appeal to the people that are going to read the magazine.

Drafting will also be a very important aspect of the planning stage. You should always come up with a number of different ideas for the layout, images and text that you are going to use to design your magazine page. For example, you might come up with four or five different ideas for the masthead of your magazine, and then find out which is the most popular with the target audience by creating a questionnaire to find out their views.

Create the front page of a school/college magazine.

• This preliminary task will prepare you for your main task which is to produce the front cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine.

Use the following elements to create a draft of the front page of a school magazine:

1. Masthead: Think of a name for the magazine.
2. Images: What picture(s) are you going to use?
3. Cover lines: What information are you going to include on the cover?
4. Captions: These are used to place the pictures into context.
5. Flashes
6. Codes and Conventions: Details you would expect to find on the front of a magazine
7. Layout and Design: The way the words and pictures are organised on the page.

·        You should aim to spend at least 2-3 hours using the computer during the construction of your front page.

·         Using the Object tool (rectangle, ellipse, polygon)

·         Using the Type tool

·         Using at least 3 Layers

·         Using Colour for background and text

·         Using appropriate fonts

·         Creating text effects using Stroke function.

·         Altering the size of text

·         Using the Rotate tool where possible

·         Taking appropriate images

·         Importing images from Adobe Bridge

·         Resizing Images

·         Cropping Images

·         Background Removal of images using Photoshop

·         Creating a Clipping Path for images

·         Using Feathering where appropriate

·         Using Corner Effects where possible

·         Using Drop Shadow where possible

·         Using Transparency where possible

·         Using Text Wrap where possible