Existing magazine covers

There is a wide variety of magazines currently available, all of different genres and aimed at different target audiences. The ones you see on a magazine stand are all well established, and although very different in style and stories, have clear conventions they follow. For example the masthead, each and every magazine above has one. They are all at the top of the cover, taking up the full space or keeping to the left hand corner. They also clearly have one ain picture, which presents the artists/ celebrities that they have used for their main story. This picture is used to attract the audience, and tends to fit in with the genre. For example, above we see NME's cover which has darker colours and more serious facial expressions. On the other hand the TeenVogue cover has Kendall & Kylie Jenner, who are very popular among teen girls, wearing brighter colour with a lighter background. Both these covers are very different, whilst showing similarities with magaine covers and also show what their audience would like to see.

Editing

For my School magazine's contents page I used pictures to make it more interesting. I didn't want to have all my pictures with the usual rectangular/square shape with clean cut edges. To edit the photos I used microsoft word, this is because I found that it offered the easiest way to make photos more interesting.

 

Preliminary Task

 

 

Prelim Task Evaluation

What did you find difficult about producing your school magazine? What did you find easy?
I found it difficult to make to make the cover look like an actual magazine, putting it all together so that it all tied in proved much harder than I thought it would. The production took a lot longer than I thought it would as every little part of magazine has to be thought through, chosen and altered accordingly and this took a long time to do. The easiest part, for me, was choosing individual factors such as background colours and the masthead font as there were only a few options to choose from that would actually work.

How would your task have been easier if you had researched into school magazines?
If I had done some research into school magazines then I would know more about how/where to take the photos for the cover/contents page. I also would've known a lot more about how to structure my magazine which would've made the task easier as without knowing I had to do a lot of guessing 

What tactics did you use to attract your audience? 
Due to it being a school magazine, of course my target audience was school pupils. Being a pupil myself I knew that most people tend to find school magazines boring and don't have any interest in reading it and so I tried to make it so that it would actually interest 16-18 year olds. I chose to make my magazine specific to the sixth form at my own school, and because of being a student there I had some idea of what a pupil might want. I made it bright and colourful so that it wasn't boring. I also didn't put too much writing on the front as I knew it would put people off. Using pictures of people from my sixth form also would've appealed to the audience as if it is someone they know on the cover they are more likely to want to read. Also I made sure that the stories on the front were ones the students could relate to, as this would lead them to wanting to know more and read further. 

What have you learnt about photoshop/other software used in the production of your preliminary task?
In terms of Photoshop and fireworks I have much more confidence and ability when it comes to using them than I did when I started, I had to spend a lot of time on both of the software and it lead to me gaining a lot of knowledge about both. I hadn't used either of them a lot beforehand and I was mostly clueless, now however I have a much better understanding of both. 

What lessons have you learnt here that will enable you to excel in the production of your main task-the music magazine?
I have learnt a lot time management wise. I didn't manage my time well at all for this task so I think this has taught me that for the main task I need to keep to a time plan. I also have learnt a lot when it comes to photographs, for example that the picture needs to be good quality, well thought out and the front cover will fit around the photo rather than the other way around. I learnt that making a magazine is a lot harder than I thought and I will need to think everything through thoroughly. 

Original Photoshoot

For my magazine cover I decided that I would like to have the pictures I used relating to Idsall Sixth Form. I asked some of my fellow students if I could photograph them working, on both computers and in a class room.

                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

For this picture I used an 'over the shoulder' shot. This shows the student working on the computer, which I thought was effective for a school magazine.



For the above photos, I took some shots from different angles. These show pupils interacting and working together, which I liked because  it shows the friendly atmosphere of the Sixth Form.

Magazine Layout

After researching magazine layouts I have created a layout that I think will be suited for my school magazine cover.



As I continue to put my cover together I think there will be a lot of trial and error involved with placing and making the layout look right.

 

Mood Board

For my school magazine I have chosen, rather than the traditional green colour, to go for a yellow and black colour scheme. This is because the Idsall school website's colours are yellow and black and I decided that I preffered these colours to the green.





I have created the following mood board to show my inspiration for colours and different image ideas