COLOUR

Throughout my magazine cover and contents page I will use a consistent colour scheme which will be apart of my house style. The colours will include blue, yellow and white which are the colours of the school's logo and uniform. This means my magazine will easily relate to the school and clearly represent it. The colour blue connotes confidence, relaxation and intelligence. This is a good message to put across to my target audience as they should reflect this or aspire to be like the colour. Yellow connotes happiness, energy and joy. This will make my magazine look bright and colourful which attract younger students to read the magazine. Lastly, white connotes purity, innocence and perfection. This colour will represent the students of the school who are young are pure.

I think my magazine will perfectly attract my target audience which is the school’s students, as I have used vivid colours instead of dull ones which will immediately attract their attention. By attracting the reader they will be more inclined to open and read the contents of the magazine. This could lead to the reader buying more issues of the magazine in the future, increasing sales.
A fluent colour scheme is important so that the colours do not clash and makes the theme obvious. It will also make the magazine look professional and sophisticated.

 

TYPOGRAPHY

What is it?

Typography is the style and appearance of printed matter. When designing a magazine cover and contents page the way the text is presented is very important. This is because the reader need to be able to read the text clearly. If the opposite of this happens then the reader will not be attracted to the page making them not want to buy the magazine. For a school magazine the typography needs to bright, clear and fun to engage a young audience.

Serif and Sans-Serif Fonts

For the masthead and possibly subheadings I will be using a serif font as these are more noticeable, interesting and detailed which will draw the readers attention to the text. The masthead is one of the most important conventions of a magazine therefore it needs to look striking and rememberable. The other text such as cover lines will be a sans-serif font meaning it will be plain and simple. This is so the audience's eyes are not drawn away from the main image. I also do not want the fonts to clash as this will downgrade the look of my product.

CONTENTS DRAFT

Inserted below is a plan of how I am going to organize my contents page. Again I have used the same colour scheme so that my magazine as a whole looks consistent and fluent throughout. Overall I think the layout of the page is organised as none of the segments overlap and the page does not look too overcrowded. I have made sure that the page will be 50% images and 50% text in order for it to be successful. The only thing I have not officially decided is the type of font and the size as it be. I will decide this later when I edit the magazine as it will depend how much available space is on the page. However I will probably chose a serif font for the masthead as I want the text to be interesting and eye-catching.

 

FRONT COVER DRAFT

After analysing two magazine covers and discovering the conventions of a magazine I was able to draw out my plan for my cover on Microsoft Word. When planning I wanted to follow the Z rule which is the fact that the reader reads from left to right and left to right in a Z formation. This is why I put the school logo in the left hand corner so it is the first thing the reader notices. Having the logo positioned here will also clearly represent the school making it obvious it is a school magazine. This applies to why I positioned the barcode in the bottom right hand corner as it is the least important thing on the page.

I have chosen to only include one main image which will cover the entire background instead of lots of little individual images. This is because I did not want to overcrowd the page and distract the reader’s attention away from the text.

I have applied the colour scheme chosen by the people who answered my questionnaire to my cover. By doing this it has helped me to plan out what colours I will use for different conventions e.g. white for the masthead.

I will be positioning the cover lines around the main image which will advertise the articles inside the magazine. This is so the reader will easily be able to read the text as see the image separately instead of them overlapping and clashing. If the page was too overcrowded then this may put the reader off reading the magazine decreasing the amount of magazine sold.

 

 

RESEARCH/QUESTIONNAIRE ANALYSIS

I received 20 answers from my questionnaire from a range of ages between 11-18. I found the feedback very useful in deciding what features I should include in my magazine. I put the feedback into pie charts so that I could see clearly what the most popular and least popular options were.

1. What name would you prefer to be the title of my magazine?

The majority of the feedback I received voted that they preferred 'Chislehurst Times' to be the title of the magazine. The reason for this is that this title is very simple but easy to remember which will eventually make the magazine well-known.






  2. What theme do you think my magazine should be based on?

 Over half of the answers stated that they wanted a 'Back To School' themed magazine. This is a appropriate time to release this magazine as students will be wanting tips for settling back to school. It also the correct time of year as students will be going back to school.






   3. How often do you think a new issue of the magazine should be released?

I will be releasing a new school magazine every term as this was the most popular option. It is obvious that the students do not want a magazine every week as this was the least popular option. I agree with the feedback as it will make it easier to have a new and current theme in every issue and lots of exclusive content e.g. Easter term and summer term.






    4. How much would you expect the magazine to cost?

I predicted the results for this question correctly.I figured '20p' would have the most positives responses as it is the cheapest option. Students will not want to pay a lot for a unofficial school magazine hence the reason I did not suggest anymore than £1. However I felt I needed to charge at some cost as it would cost money to create and print out the magazine.






  5. What colour scheme do you prefer?

Even though the colour schemes are fairly similar, 'blue, yellow and white' won the vote. I am happy this was the most popular option as these colours are the same as the school logo and uniform. This means the magazine will clearly represent the school professionally.






 6. What activities would you like to be included in the magazine?

The majority of the feedback answered question 6 as 'competition'. This means the students would like to have a competition to answer as an activity. The competition will include a easy question so it is suitable for all ages. The prize will either relate back to the school e.g. 100 merits or a shopping voucher. I expected 'Crosswords or Sudoku' to have a small amount of votes as I felt this would probably not attract 11-18 year old's.


  7. What kind of articles would you like to see in the magazine?

Lastly I questioned what type of article would people want to read. 'News Updates' and 'Advice' both received the same amount of votes meaning I will include both options. I think both of these options were chosen as they fit the purpose of a school magazine. These options also fit well with my chosen theme 'Back To School' as new and old students will be seeking advice and wanting to know the latest news.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Before designing my magazine I wanted to gain information from the public to see what they would like from a school magazine, from a customers perspective. To do this I made a questionnaire which featured the following questions:

1. What name would you prefer to be the title of my magazine?

- Chislehurst Times
- Chislehurst Express
- Chislehurst Mail

    2. What theme do you think the magazine should be based on?

- Back To School
- Christmas
- Halloween

   3. How often do you think a new issue of the magazine should be released?

- Every week
- Every Term
- Every Month

  4. How much would you expect the magazine to cost?

- 20p
- 50p
- £1

  5. What colour scheme do you prefer?

- Blue, Yellow, White
- Black, Red, Green
- Blue, Green, White

 6. What activties would you like to be inlucded in the magazine?

- Competition
- Crosswords or Sudoku
- Cartoon Strips

7.  What kind of articles would you like see in the magazine?

- News Updates
- Advice
- Fashion
- Interviews

Please send your answers and other suggestions to cowburnvictoria@gmail.com

MY IDEAS AND POSSIBLE TITLES

My Ideas

After analyzing two previous magazine covers and contents pages, also researching the conventions of magazine I have gained a lot of inspiration to create my own. I now understand the common themes that school magazines use and how they should be presented. Listed below are my ideas of themes I could base my magazine on:

1. BACK TO SCHOOL

One of my ideas for a 'back to school' themed magazine is to have the main image of a group of students looking fresh, smart and enthusiastic to go back to school. This means the students facial expressions will have to be very happy and cheerful and their body language will have to connote excitement and eagerness. The text positioned around the main image will read tips for a successful school year, advertising after school clubs, how to achieve a*'s and much more. The colour scheme will follow the colour's in the school logo which features blues, yellow and white so that my magazine clearly represents the school.

    2. CHIRSTMAS

My next idea is so design my magazine based on Christmas. This means I would dress-up my models in festive clothes such as Santa hats, Christmas jumpers or reindeer antlers. I would also edit my main image on Photoshop by changing the background to snow and adding extra images found from the internet such as candy canes or Christmas trees. The colour scheme would obviously be Christmas related meaning I would use reds, greens and white.

    3. HALLOWEEN

My last idea is to design my magazine as a special Halloween edition. The colours would represent the season therefore I would have to use lots of black, orange and overall dark shades. I would dress my models up in traditional spooky Halloween costumes such as witches, devils, zombies, pumpkins and skeletons. I would also do their hair and make-up to fit in with the theme. The font that I would use for the master head would be very creepy and alarming e.g. blood dripping from each individual letter, to attract the reader's attention. The sell lines would also be in a festive font but clearer to read as it would be positioned small. The text (coloured darkly) would read something like 'scary costumes ideas', 'top 10 tips for a spooky party' or '10 gruesome but delicious recipes'.

Possible Titles

• Chislehurst Times
• Chislehurst Express
• Chislehurst Mail

My inspiration for these ideas came from my internet research on different magazines and newspapers, not specifically school ones. For expample, instead of the 'Daily Mail' I used the word Chislehurst to replace 'Daily'. This is because the magazine is made by the school therefore their name should be included on it so everyone knows this.

CONVENTIONS OF A MAGAZINE

By analysing two magazine covers and two contents pages I have found the common conventions used, which are listed below:

Masterhead - The Masterhead is the title usually poisitioned at the top of the page. Magazines usally use the same typography on each edition which is their logo, this is so readers can recognise the magazine and know what they are reading.

Main Image - The main image usually covers the whole page as is associated with the main article.

Strapline - Is the introducery headline positioned below the masterhead describing the magazine.

Coverlines - The essential articles inside the magazine are stated through sell lines, these are regulary seen at the right hand side of the cover.

Tag - A word or phrase used to engage a reader's interest in a story e.g. 'exlusive', 'sensational' or 'new', to show that the magazine has high compliments.

Pug - Can either be positioned in the top left or right hand corner of the front cover. The price of the magazine, the logo, promotions or even a freebie is placed there to catch the reader’s eye.

Barcode - Is a machine-readable code and used to check stock and find out the price of a product. On a magazine cover the barcode is usually positioned in the either bottom corner fairly small.

Colour Scheme - Every magazine cover and contents page follows a  particular colour scheme where particular colours are used throughout. Examples of colours schemes include pastel colours, black and white or dark tones.

CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSIS 2

CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSIS 1

MAGAZINE ANALYSIS 2

MAGAZINE ANALYSIS 1

INTRODUCTION

My name is Victoria Cowburn and I am studying AS Media Studies at Chislehurst School for Girls.
I have created this blog to present my School Magazine coursework. On this blog you will see me prepare to make my magazine by doing things like; analyzing other peoples magazines and studying the conventions of a magazine. Doing this will guide me to make a good magazine suitable for my target audience and give me more knowledge on how to layout the conventions. After creating my magazine I will be evaluating it by gaining feedback from others and assessing the pro's and con's. This will be helpful as if I were to make a new magazine in the future, I could learn from my mistakes. I am looking forward to making my school magazine as I have a passion for photography and enjoy editing images and text on Photoshop.