Evaluation

This is the final version of our school magazine front cover.

Positives:
- The t shows the magazine is aimed at young people. This is because it is called 'Mizzy Kidz'. This would attract younger people more than adults because adults would want a much more formal name. Also it is in a very funky and informal font. This is also aimed more at younger people because older people would a much smarter title name. Finally it is in a bright blue color which would again attract a younger audience because they would find darker colors more boring and would make them less likely to want to read the magazine.

- The cover lines are all to do with a school and would suit the sorts of things students would want to read about in a school magazine. They are talking about what to wear in sixth form, what school clubs would suit students and revision tips. All the sorts of things that would be expected from a school magazine.

- The picture on the magazine cover shows a sixth former reading something in a working environment and clearly enjoying it.It also shows desks and chairs in the background and also you can sort of see some students in the background. All of these add to the idea that the school is filled with lots of hard working students. Exactly the sort of thing a school magazine would want to portray to any readers.

- The cover also has the schools address, contact number, email address and a bar code. These are a great thing to have on the bottom of a magazine because if any students needed any of this information it would be available very easily. It also makes the cover quite formal because it has got useful information before you have even opened it.

- The fact that this information is on a black background with a white line at the top also makes it more formal and more professional because its the sort of things proper professional magazines would include. It is also quite short and sweet and so all the required information is condensed into one place and doesnt take up too much space.

- The color of the cover lines are great because they are much more fun and interesting than using black and so would hopefully attract more readers as they feel it was aimed more at them that adults. The fonts are also good again because they suit younger people and not adults. We did keep to the same color in the masthead and cover lines which is good because it shows a constant theme.

Improvements:

- The thin black banner right at the top of the banner could have something like a headline or a price inside it so it doesn't look as empty. This would also be some great and interesting information to add to the front of the magazine to draw more readers to it.

- The picture shows the boy doesn't have his top button done up so to improve we could have taken another similar picture but with his top button done up as it would have made him look even smarter.

- Another improvement we could make would be to focus on one area of the school. The masthead and some of the cover lines are aimed at some younger years and yet the picture and other cover lines are aimed at sixth formers. We could have focused on one year by for example having a smarter masthead font and changed the name to suit an older audience such as sixth formers. We could have then changed some of the fonts used in the cover lines and also their color to suit the older students.

- Some of the colors of the cover lines clash a little with the background colors. They aren't un-readable but it may have been a good idea to spend some time on some of the colors so it is even clearer to read than it already is. It is mainly the red colors that are hardest to read so they are the ones that could possibly have been a more suitable color depending on the background.

- Finally the barcode at the bottom, although does look professional, especially on the black background may not be suitable for a school magazine. This is because they are normally free for anyone to pick up, and if they do cost money the buyer normally just gives change and there is no need to use a scanner to sell it, as most schools wouldn't have the equipment such as a till and scanner a barcode may be a bit pointless but none the less it does make it look more professional.

Any other feedback on the cover would be greatly appreciated!!

 This is the picture we decided to use on our front cover. This is because the boy looks very happy and like he is enjoying what he is reading and learning about. We decided this would be the picture that portrays the school in the best way and that is what the magazine would be trying to do. The picture below shows an edited version we tried to make so that you couldn't see the tables and person on her phone in ht background. That is how it turned out and after making the front cover with that picture we decided it looked too empty to we put the original back in but cropped out the person with their phone. Then we moved a few bits around, changed the color and size of some text and added a few other bits.

The final cover will be up soon.

Pictures

There are some of the pictures I took for our magazine cover. We have used a few shots such as a low shot, close up and over the shoulder. Together they show different perspectives. The low shot emphasizes the sixth former working at his computer and how much he is concentrating on the work he is doing. The close up focuses on the book the boy is reading and also how much he is also concentrating on it. The over the shoulder shots make the reader feel as if they are in the position of the person in the picture because they can see what he is either reading or what he is doing on his computer. The effect of the first 2 pictures are it makes it look like the students work and focus very hard on their work. It doesn't show him being distracted but focusing only on his computer. The second 2 shots also show that people in younger years than sixth form also focus hard on what they are doing because he is reading a book with his head down so it looks like he interested in nothing else than that book. Then the last 3 photos  again make it look like the students concentrate on their work very hard but also do lots of good quality work. It also shows them enjoying what they are doing by the big smile on his face in the last picture.

The range in pictures also show how I took into consideration different ethnicities. We didn't only have caucasian people, we also had a boy from an Asian background. What I didn't do though was take many pictures of females. In this post all the pictures are male orientated but a photo I posted before was of a female. This makes me realize next time I have to take pictures for my next magazine cover and contents to get more pictures of females as well as males depending on what sort of magazine I am making.

I will post the final picture we chose shortly.

Feedback

We showed our teacher what our front cover so far, some of the ideas she said to add was....

- change some of the text colour so it matched other colours but also looked much better with the background colours.
- make the title larger.
- move some of the text around because the background changed.
- add a couple of pictures on the right hand side of the cover so that it looks a bit more full.

We will be uploading the final cover very shortly.

This is another school magazine front cover I have found. It's masthead is 'backtoschool' so this shows it is the first magazine published after a holiday such as the summer holidays. It does have a direct mode of address which the last one didn't. This means the picture on the front almost engages the reader because they feel the person on the front is looking directly at them. It's main cover line is 'first day Jitters'. This means that the main article is about people being nervous on their first day at that school so it may be giving them advice about how to overcome this nervousness, this would be attracting the audience of the new people at the school. The cover lines include titles such as 'Breakfast, Lunch, Snack', this could therefore be giving people advice on how to eat a bit more healthily instead of eating junk food, something of which a lot of teenagers would consume on a daily basis. There are then other cover lines that talk about tips about how to have a lighter school bag or some of the top 10 gadgets. These would all be ideal articles for the magazine because they would all be subjects that the students would be interested in. The magazine doesn't have a barcode on it which suggests it cannot be bought, so it is only available in school and that it is perhaps free.

This magazine has given me a few good ideas for my magazine In that students would be interested in things such as gadgets and making their bags lighter so I could use subjects similar to this!

 

Draft Front Cover

This is a very basic first idea of how the front cover m
could look. It only shows that it will have a masthead which me and Lauren have already decided will be 'Mizzy Kidz', the strapline that will draw the readers attention to the magazine, the direct mode of address will be a picture of someone looking at the reader and it will have 3 coverlines around the direct mode of address of some of the stories that would have been included in the magazine. These could include anything such as exam results, trips, events the school may be putting on or anything that is relevant to the school that the readers will enjoy reading about. We would also add in a main coverline because this will also draw the readers to the magazine when they see it. It will have to be something that they would enjoy reading or else they if they saw it and weren't interested they wouldn't pick it up to read it.

Pictures

This is one picture I took today. I have decided not to use this in my final front cover, one reason is because it is quite boring and wouldn't attract people to the magazine. It is also looks a little bit scary and so again would put people off picking up and reading the magazine. Another reason I might not use this picture is because it isn't portraying any sort of message of the school and we need a picture that would represent the school as being a good, friendly place for people to learn!! I will be uploading some more pictures soon!!

Uploading

In the lesson today I have taken some pictures of various different people doing differant things such as reading and typing and used some differant shotas for some variation. I have also done a plan for an idea for a front page so I am waiting for lauren to do one and they will both be uploaded. I will also be uploading the pictures I took and write about which ones are good, which ones aren't good and which ones I might use in my final product.

Magazine analysis

This is a school magazine front cover I have found. Initially it seems like it is aimed at kids, probably between the ages of around 12 - 15. This is because it is quite colorful and looks a lot like a paper collage. It also shows young people doing lots of activities such as swimming, athletics and many other sports. But the text in the middle although is on what looks like a scrap piece of paper it is very formal writing with a logo next to it. This might imply that it is aimed at a much older audience, perhaps the parents of the children. So for this magazine it is hard to tell who it is for but it does give me an idea of what sort of fonts not to use if I want my magazine to be aimed at students. It shows me that I don't want to use formal fonts on my front page if I want teenagers to read it. It has also shown me that using a collage of pictures does appeal to a younger audience because it is more fun than formal.

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we have to work in pairs to design a front cover for a school magazine. Those of us who don't know how to use the software called 'InDesign' pair up with someone who does know how to use it. I have partnered with Lauren who will hopefully teach me how to do the basics. We have already decided the magazine will be called 'Mizzy Kidz'. The will hopefully be seen as more of a 'street' way of saying 'Misbourne Kids' and should hopefully appeal to the younger audience within the school. We have started using a font called 'Ravie'. This is because it looks much more informal and should again apeal to the younger audience but this isn't the final choice, we will have a look through some more fonts soon so that we have a choice of fun fonts to use. Right now we are trying to look at some current school magazines to analyse them so we have some good idea of how to make our own look!

lesson 1.

Today in the lesson we are looking at some magazines set by the teacher and within a pair we are analysing it and posting it on here.