Brief

For this task, we were asked to create a school magazine with a front cover and a contents page on it. This took me a few hours and I had to take my own pictures in the process of creating my front cover and contents page on the program Adobe Photoshop. I intended to make this for students in the sixth form, making sure it is appropriate for the purpose and appeals to that age group by using colour schemes that attract the target audience. I am also making sure that I have inserted the school logo so that without reading you are aware and have a good idea of the genre of the magazine, which is that of sixth form life. I am also intending to add a variety of images onto my school magazine to ensure that it isn't all just text and the audience are able to stay engaged in what they are reading.

The masthead on this school magazine suggests a sign of formality with the bold clear text that has been used but also a sense of informality in the way that it has been tilted at a 90 degree angle, suggesting it is a school magazine designed to appeal to both students as well as parents of the school.

The main image that has been used on the front page of this magazine suggests that the school has a strong achieving background shown by students standing with their awards and that they are always striving for success.

The font and language that has been used is quite formal and segmented into paragraphs denoting it is an informative school magazine designed mainly to inform parents and carers.

The colour scheme that has been used on this magazine is quite varied, suggesting although it is mainly a formal magazine for parents, the use of lots of colour denotes that it is trying to look eye catching to grab the attention of the reader.

The story on this school magazine links to the image and indicates success, reward and hard work of students at the school and the achievements they have got denoting it’s a successful school.

The masthead in this school magazine connotes a sense of professionalism. Also with the use of the word ‘independent’ this is indicating that this school is indeed a private school.

The main image on the cover of this magazine appears to be showing two pupils that are doing work. This connotes that the students are hard working and are doing their best to achieve the highest grades they can, especially with the implication that this is a private school so it would be stereotypically expected.

The strap line on this magazine is ‘helping you make the right choices for your children.’ This denotes that this magazine is aimed at parents and not for children with the use of the word ‘your’. This strap line also suggests that they are intending to lure parents into purchasing this magazine in the hope that they can help their children succeed.

The mini contents on the side of the magazine are there to give a brief overview of the main stories highlighted in this magazine and could be seen as teaser stories since they include the page number as well as the title of the story in the hope that people will purchase the magazine if those particular stories catch their eye or are intriguing to the audience.

The font that is used on the front cover of this magazine is quite large, bold and in a variety of different colours so the audience are more engaged with the magazine.

Audience Research

For my audience research, I asked a variety of students these questions of what they would expect to see in a school magazine. They had to select from a variety of different options of what they would expect to see in a school magazine including school current affairs, student achievements, school dates, GCSE results and also school facilities. The results from the research are shown below, with school current affairs and news the most popular option that they would expect to see in a school magazine, which is what I decided to implement into my school magazine as some of the main topics.

AS Media Studies Preliminary Task – School Magazine Front Page Proposal Form

Target audience: (age range, interests)Although it is a school newsletter you still have to think about your audience and how to appeal to them.

The target audience for this school magazine is going to be school children or more specifically sixth form students between the ages of 16 and 18 years old. To make it look appealing to this target audience, I will need to make sure I have an engaging front cover that will grab the readers attention , but at the same time have a professional and clean look to it. I will do this by using a lot of blending options and a variety of colours through the use of gradients in the text and background. I will also need to make sure that the content is appropriate for that age group, for example I wouldn’t talk about GCSE results for sixth form students, as it has no relevance to them.

Possible title ideas: (masthead / title block)What is your magazine going to be called? ThePriory-SixthForm

Main image:What will be the focal point of your front page, remember, your work “must include a photograph of a student in a medium close-up”

For the main image on the front page of this school magazine, the focal point will be of a happy student walking through the school, maybe holding his bag or possibly some books in their hand.

Main cover line:What will be the main story?

The main story on this school magazine will be tips for success in sixth form, as well as exam help and organisational skills to help achieve success.

Additional key images:What other images will be on your front cover?Remember, it is a school magazine.

Additional key images that I could use on my front cover could be either a picture of the front for the school, or a possible competition picture such as an iPod nano/iPod shuffle as a merit reward.

Additional cover lines:Other features, stories or selling points which will be inside the magazine, these need to be audience appropriate.

Dealing with work loads.Sixth Form Uniform.

Headphone Ban?

Music Dept gets Revamp

Merit Rewards

Sixth Form – Highest Intake in years

Typography: (style, size, colour of copy)Think about the writing and the style of the writing on your front page.

The typography for the front page will be most likely standard font, with a variety of different font sizes used in the title and different colour schemes too; most likely a red, black, grey and white combination to blend with the logo of the school.

Background colour/image:What will be in the background, remember you don’t want to take the focus away from the main image.

The background colour will most likely be a light grey colour, to make it look professional and allow the other features in the magazine to stand out more such as the masthead and the main image.

Technical considerations:(equipment, setting, props, costume, lighting)Be realistic and creative, think about what you have access to and how you could use it.

Expected sixth form clothing e.g. a suit, tie and trousers. Also a camera, as well as a school bag on their back.

Preliminary exercise: produce a front page and contents page of a school magazine. Front covers must include a

photograph of a student in a medium close-up with appropriately laid out text and use of an image manipulation

programme (Photoshop).

Below start to sketch what the front cover of your newsletter will look like.

Preliminary exercise: produce a front page and contents page of a school magazine. Front covers must include a

photograph of a student in a medium close-up with appropriately laid out text and use of an image manipulation

programme (Photoshop).

Below start to sketch what the contents page of your newsletter will look like.

The front page of my school magazine

The school logo on the front page is fairly clear and stands out on the magazine and being directly underneath the title so will be one of the first features of the magazine that the reader looks at. As well as this, the logo gives the magazine an identity to go along with the title.

The title/masthead that I have used for the front page of my magazine is an acronym of ‘The Priory School – Sixth Form’ which is basically addressing the target audience of the magazine which are sixth form students who are apart of The Priory School.

The issue number and date is underneath the logo to give the reader an idea of how many of the magazines have previously been published and also whether the magazine is the latest edition or an older one.

The headings on the front cover of this magazine have been spread out so that they are clear to see and also so that the front cover is not too crowded and people can get a rough idea of the contents of the school magazine as well as what the topics of the magazine will discuss. They are all the same size just to keep a sense of symmetry on the magazine, with the red text on the grey text boxes to ensure that the clarity of the sub headings are good.

Changing the Image

This is the original image that I started off with for the front cover of my magazine.

After editing out the image of the background by selecting the magic wand tool, it gave me an image like this on Photoshop, with just the outline of the person. I also used the plaster tool to remove blemishes and spots on the persons face as well.

The contents page of my school magazine

For the contents page of my school magazine, I once again used a similar style of font and layout to my front cover, but with a few more additions to the overall contents page. The text is red and stands out from the background image that I have used

All the images that I have used on my contents page are appropriate to the topic they are referring to, so for the ‘Headphone Ban?’ Column I put some headphones next to it to make it interesting and also appropriate to the topic.

The logo on the contents page has been enlarged from the front cover to show the importance that it has on this page and to give the contents page a similar identity to that of the front cover.

The background image that I have used has been faded out by editing the opacity of the image to allow the sub headings and masthead to stand out on the contents page. The image of the person that I have used underneath the contents masthead has also been edited to stand out against the background that I have used by making it brighter.

Changing the Image

This is the original image that I had for the contents page of my magazine.

For this image, I once again used the magic wand tool to remove the background of the image, meaning that I was just left with the outline of the person. I also changed the brightness and contrast of the image by going onto image, adjustments and then altering the brightness and contrast accordingly.