The Final Front Cover

The title stands out as it is large and in an easy font and colour to read. The words in capital letters and in large font are used for emphasis. It shows what is featured in the magazine. All the writing is easy to read and understand. There is an enlarged picture of the grade slip that the student is holding in the middle to the right of the magazine-showing good grades would possibly make potential readers want to buy it and read more. Mid close-up of the student holding up their exam results with a shocked face. People could interpret this in many ways. This could mean they did exceptionally well and didn't think that they would get these results or they could have done really badly and failed everything etc. The background will be the background of the image that i will be taking and using, which will be the grange. The layout is simple and not cluttered in order to make it easy to read. I have also used the school logo as it is something to represent the school. I did not use an actual image as everytime I wanted to take images the person was either unavailable or it was raining. The writing looks a bit too cartoon-like which is good for a school magazine. It does not look like there is much going on.

Contents Page

This contents page is simple and easy to read. you would not want a contents page that is over-crowded with images and writing as it would be rather difficult to read and pick out exactly what you want to read about or look at.

Research: Titles

From these titles that i have researched, i will use these to help me to design my own title for my magazine.

School Life
6th Fun
6th Formers
6th Form
School Days
The Formers

Out of these title ideas i will choose one that will be suitable for a 6th Form magazine.

Research: Contents Page

The background is simple. However, it is very bland and boring and would not attract many readers. There are six main headings which are all in bold and are bigger in font size to make them stand out from the rest of the page and other sub-headings. By looking at the contents page, it seems to be quite a long magazine as there are so many sub-headings listed. Comparing this contents page with the other contents page, the other one would appeal more to the readers as it is colourful and has an image as its background. However, this contents page is easier to read and it has specific sub-headings so it is easier to find exactly what you are looking for or are interested in. This would look higher in quality if it had an image as its background or had a few pictures of what is featured inside the magazine or of people.

Research: Front Cover Of School Magazine

The white background is a contrast as it makes all the writing and the picture stand out extremely well. Mid close-up of a student with her books and bag. She doesn't seem to be that happy about going back to school. Has alot of headlines and captions to show the reader what is featured in the magazine and this will interest readers in buying the magazine. Some small writing so will enable you to look closer. The title "backtoschool" would stand out more and look more effective if it was all in capital letters as well as the "back" and "school" being in bold. Using captions makes it more motivated and holds down the meaning of the image. It seperates the most important asepct(s) on the page from the rest. It uses a range of font colours, sizes and fonts. It shows distinct contrast between each font and its purpose, one font for the title, one font for the headlines, one font for the captions etc.

Research: Contents Page

They have created half of a boarder by using images of the school, students and teachers. Not many magazines do this and it is quite effective and it gives you an insight as to what goes on within the school grounds. The title "Contents" is in a bold colour and makes it stand out. The use of an image as the background is also effective. Having a block of colour as a background tends to be very bland and boring. What is featured in the magazine is quite hard to read as it is in small writing. This would appeal more to readers as it is colourful. This contents page is not that easy to read and find what the reader is looking for or is interested in.

Research: Front Cover Of School Magazines

The yellow writing on top of the image stands out. The title is in capital letters so this makes it stand out more. The camera shot of the image is long shot which is different to the school football magazine which is a medium close-up. None of the people in the image have direct eye contact with the reader. The image is taken from eye-level. The first headline, "HOLLYWOOD SROs GO ABOVE AND BEYOND", makes the reader shout it out in their head as they read it and it stands out as it is in bold and is emphasised.. The colour scheme seems to be yellow,white and orange. All 3 of the colours stand out but the orange would stand out even more if it was a brighter orange. The man sitting down looks serious so this portrays his role of being a sheriff and brings out his character. Underneath and above the title there is really small writing which is quite difficult to read. The editors probably did this to enable the reader to look closer and perhaps make the readers want to buy it. It has a few insights on the cover as to what is in the magazine. In contrast to the school football magazine, this is a better school magazine as there is not too much going on and it is not cluttered. It gets straight to the point. The headline "Establishing Safe-School Partnerships" goes with the image, saying that schools and the police should work together to help have a safe working environment at school. The style reflects the audience.

Spider Diagram Of My Own Ideas

By creating this spider diagram, i have been able to pick the best bits and pieces from each of the sub-headings to use for my front cover.

Research: Front Cover Of School Magazines

This magazine is aimed at primary school children who are interested in becoming footballers. Adventure School Photography offer framed pictures of the children wearing team colours and made up to look like they are on the front cover of a magazine. This is an idea that they took from some of their colleagues in America. They think it will prove to be very popular.

The first thing that caught my eye of this magazine was the bright colour scheme (yellow) and the title "STRIKE!". "STRIKE" stands out as it is in capital letters, the font size is big and the red on the yellow background makes it stand out even more. From afar, some of the writing is quite difficult to read as it is quite small. The editors of this magazine may have done this on purpose in order for the reader to look closer and draw the attention of the reader. The plain white background makes everything stand out. Mid close-up of a boy with 2 little football related images. "WIN, FREE BOOTS FOR YOUR CLUB"- draws your attention, makes you want to buy it. The boys eyes are looking at you. The image is taken from eye-level.

Media Coursework- Pre-liminary Task Brief

For Media, we have to do coursework. We were given the choice of 4 briefs: Print, Video, Audio and Website. I have chosen to do Print as the school has the resources that i would need to use in my coursework.

Preliminary Task Brief: I have to produce the front cover and contents page of a school magazine. It needs to feature a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus text (captions, headlines etc) I have to use DTP and an image manipulation program.

I have interpreted this brief as a magazine aimed at Sixth Form as i am going to do the main story on exam results.

The magazine will go out around mid November.

Sixth Form's interests include: Driving Schools, Prom, Common Rooms.

Interesting events/issues that have happened or are going to happen: Harvest, Jeans for Genes Day, Exam Results, Sixth Form entertainment, Dress Code-what we want to wear.

Photographs that would have an impact and relate to the above events/issues of a student in medium close up would have to be several photographs of students wearing what they think is suitable for Sixth Form as this would reflect on what we are supposed to wear for Sixth Form, a photograph with a student looking at their exam results with shocked/surprised faces in mid close-up with a few students in the background close together with different facial expressions.

My lead would be a mid close-up of a student holding their exam results in their hands looking shocked on the front cover with a big standing out headline and medium sized captions and the colour theme will make Sixth Form students and possibly teachers want to pick up the magazine and read it.

The style of my magazine that i will use will be traditional.

Firstly i will research the front covers of school magazines to help me to get an idea of the design and layout of how i would like my front cover to look. For example: the positioning and camera angles of the photographs, font, size and colour of text, colour theme etc.

Following this, i will analyse the front covers to say what is good about certain areas and what is not quite so good about other areas.

Secondly, i will research and analyse contents pages of school magazines to help me to create my own contents page.

All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate, minimum of four images per candidate.