Evaluation

Front cover:

In my front cover production I have decided to use a background picture of two students at the ‘May Ball’ who look like they are having a good time. There smiles and the fact that their at the ‘May Ball’ give of a good impression of the school showing that it is home to happy students and it also shows that  the school runs events for the students to attend. I have decided to use the fonts ‘Bodoni MT Black’ and ‘Arial Black’ because they stand out from the picture background and would catch the readers eye. The masthead is in the ‘Bodoni MT Black’ font, I have decided to put it in this font because this font is bolder and would stand out more than the ‘Arial Black’ font which I have used for the coverlines. I have used the colours orange and yellow because they stand out from the picture background and also they have connotations of being associated with happiness and good moods. The root of the eye starts of with the title and then moves diagnolly downwards through some coverlines and across the picture which suggets neale wade is a happy place. I have used the principle of thirds, the primary optical area is the students faces and some coverlines, I have put these things in the primary optical area because the students faces are important for the image of school and magazine, and also the emphasis on the coverlines would catch the readers eye and make them read on. I have decided to put coverlines in 3 out of the 4 hotspots because I belive these too be very important in trying to make the reader read on. In the terminal area I have put a coverline which would be the last thing the reader see’s and would entice them to read on in to the magazine.I have used some coverlines like ‘Science Club’, ‘ICT Software’, ‘Eco-thing’ and ‘Homework help’, these things are all good things to be associated with a school, they connote that Neale Wade is a good place to be and offers good learning facilities and is interested in the protection of the environment. I have also put a checkered yellow border around each text box which I feel adds to the desired effect of my magazine which is associating Neale Wade school with happiness and good things.My target audience for this magazine is students of Neale Wade and maybe people thinking of coming to Neale Wade (Year 6’s), I have decided to try and appeal to this audience by using a specific mode of address, this is informal and I believe that this is the best way to appeal to a younger audience, and also text like “Check the sports day pictures” and “Gossip” suggests that this magazine is aimed at youngsters and I feel that my choice of mode of address would succesfully appeal to them.

Contents Page

In my contents page I have decided to use different bright colours to carry on with my happy image of Neale Wade, these colours are orange,green,yellow and red. At the bottom of the page I have also used 2 pictures of students at ‘Freshers 08’ and this succesfully contributes to the good image of Neale Wade school, it also shows another event which the school puts on and promotes the image of the school further. The masthead is in a blue font on an orange background which helps to catch the readers eye and entice them to read onto the informtation below the masthead. I have also used two other main headlines on the page, these are ‘School events’ and ‘School sports’, both of these headlines are followed by the page numbers of stories and articles associated with these two things. The story titles under the main headlines show articles like ‘Upcoming events pg. 2-5’, ‘Year 6 induction day pg. 25-30’,‘Sports day pictures pg. 14-19’ and ‘Interhouse results and pictures pg. 54-57’, all of these stories help to enhance the image of the school, this is because it is showing things that the school puts on for their students, like an induction day for new students to help them get used to their surroundings and also sports days. Both of the fonts of these main headlines are in ‘Bodoni MT black’ which helps to stand out and the following stories are in ‘Lucida console’ which I belive complenments the ‘Bodoni MT black’ and makes the whole page more pleasing on the eye. Around the text box’s I have put different colour borders, and like the front cover this helps with making the page more pleasing on the eye. In the contents page I have put the picture of students at ‘Freshers 08’ in the terminal area, this would be the last thing the student see’s and would maintain the good image already built up of the school through the front cover and text in the contents page. As I have said previously my target audience for the magazine is students of Neale Wade and people thinking of coming to Neale Wade (Year 6’s), and I feel that all of the techniques used in the contents page maintains my mode of adress from the front cover which was writing in an informal way and maintaining the interest of the readers by bright colours and interesting pictures.

Skills I have learnt

The skills I have learnt through this preliminary task range from analysing and reviewing past school magazines, which helped me to get ideas for my school magazine front cover and contents page. I also learnt how to efficiently analyse articles in a magazine. I believe this experience would help me in the future with my main task as I would have more ideas to put into it. In the preliminary task I also had to design a front cover and contents page, I had already done this in the past and this further experience can only help me in the future as I will have to design a music magazine in my main task. I have also learnt how to choose fonts and colours to gain an eye catching effect, this would help in attracting readers to the magazine. This will help me in making my main task magazine more pleasing on the eye.