Evaluation of School Magazine

In Media studies at AS level, I was asked to create a school magazine front cover, along with a contents page for my pleminary task. I had to complete my front cover and my contents page within 4 weeks of starting it. I have found that this Peliminary task has allowed me to learn various new skills in photoshop and Blogger and has also made me learn that deadlines are very important to keep to.

In what ways does your school magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real school magazines?
My school magazine uses, develops and challenges many forms and conventions of real magazines. The layout of the text and images on my front cover are similar to that of 'VIBE' magazine, a high selling music magazine. The close up image I used on my front cover used conventions of real school magazines as most school magazines have one particular image on the front, specifically a celebrity. I chose to put an attractive and eye catching close up image on the front much like the close up images on the 'VIBE' magazine. My school magazine does not develop too many forms and conventions of real school magazines and does not challenge many conventions of real magazines either. My front cover does however challenge conventions of real school magazines with the title. School magazines have big, bold and very 'in your face' titles. My school magazine has challenged this by having a bold and big title but having the text warped to make it look nearly bubble like.

How does your school magazine represent particular social groups?
My school magazine does not represent different social groups through people as there is only one person on my front cover. The person on the front cover does however portray one type of social group within the school, which is a happy and fashionable social group. Another social group is also shown through the background colours and distortion. A gothic social group is shown through the colours shown in the background as they are very dark and spooky.

What kind of media institution might distribute your school magazine?
The kind of media institution that would distribute my school magazine is the school itself (the school which the magazine is about).


Who would be the audience for your school magazine?
The audience for my school magazine would be ofcourse teenagers from the ages of 12-16. This is because the magazine would be about the school, mainly from the pupils point of veiw. Although the magazine would be informative, it would not be suitable for parents to pick up and read as there would only content that youths would be interested in.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my target audience by


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this school magazine?
I have learnt about many processes on Adobe Photoshop 7.0 throughout the course of making my school magazine. I have learnt how to proffesionally cut out an image from it's background. I have learnt how to repair a photograph's quality to make it's standards higher. For example, adjusting the colour to turn a blue-ish photograpgh into one which is balanced in colour. Along with many more processes, I have come a long way from knowing nothing about Adobe Photoshop, to creating a school magazine on it.

How did you find making this school magazine and what did you find particularly difficult or easy?
Making this school magazine to a high quality in a fairly short amount of time was averagely difficult. It was harder for me at the beginning as I had never used Adobe Photoshop, but gradually I came to understand what different tools did. Towards the end, I was much more organised than in the beginning and had a personal goal which I had to reach. Due to this I was able to reach the deadline, otherwise it would have been almost impossible. I found getting started particularly difficult as I did not really have any pictures to work from and experiment with. It was a difficult because I was not organised near the beginning but then I piced myself up and found it much easier to get on with the work. I found taking my pictures easy because I already had in mind what kind of image I wanted on my front cover. Therefore, I was able to compose the best image for me.

If you had the chance to do this school magazine again, what would you do different to improve it?
If I had the chance to do this school magazine again, I would include more blue on the front cover as that is what my target audience mostly wanted. I do not think I would make many changes to it as I created it based upon my results that I got from my school magazine survey. I would change my contents page to make it slightly more similar to the front cover, rather than having such a diverse contents page from the front cover.

Finished School Magazine Front Cover

Finally I decided on using a light green and light blue for my typography on my front cover shown below. I did this for two reasons which were because they are contrasting colours and work very well together and also because Fortismere's school colours are both light green and light blue. Although the light green does not contrast with the purple in the background it does stand out very well and simultaneously does not take attention away from the main image. I used the important issues used mostly from the results of my survey to put on the front cover as typography. I noticed that a barcode, the issue number and the price was also essential to have on the front cover so I included them as well. I followed the layout of the magazines I was looking at and referred back to them when I was completing this cover.

For my contents page I used my main image of the figure and distorted it. Behind the distortion, I painted the canvas in light blue and light green, again thinking of using the colours of the school. I then made the distortion slightly transparent so the blue and green can be seen, but not too much otherwise the distortion would not have been seen too well. This is why the green and blue colours have come out a bit darker than expected. I chose yellow, orange and turquoise for the typography on the contents page. I chose these colours based on the responses I got from my school magazine survey. The typography I put on the front cover has also been placed in my contents page, separate from the rest of the contents to make them seem like exclusive parts of the magazine. They have also been placed in a different colour from the rest of the contents to exaggerate this fact. Also I purposely only put the contents of 11 pages as my target audience chose the option of 11-14 pages thinking it would be ideal for a school magazine.

Experiments with Text

I had already thought of a name for my magazine when I had done my magazine research. The magazines I looked at had very bold titles and were all reletively 4 - 6 letter long titles. On that basis i thought of "4ORTY" for my magazine name and thought it would be unique for me to replace the "f" for a "4". Also I decided to make my title have a very bold font aswell on this basis. I had noticed that some those magazines I looked at had near the same colour as the background although a lot of them did have contrasting colour or colours that stood out from the background. Due to this fact, I experimented with a slighlty lighter colour than the background colour. I warped the title to make it seem a little cylinder like and round. I thought this would add more emphasis to it and it does which is why I kept the warped text as it was but carried on experimenting with colours. Above on the right I used an even more strong and striking colour which brought out the title a bit too much and I thought that the red and purple did not work well with each other.

Backround Experiments On School Front Cover

I had started to think about my background of my front cover for the school magazine. I discovered that Fortismere's school colours are light green and light blue so I experimented with those colours on the background and found that it did not work too well. My intention was to create a school magazine front cover and having these two colours on the background work with the main image although the colour compliment each other. For these reasons I did not use this background. I then decided to encorporate a photo that I took near the early stages of this project of the school buildings as the background. I used the filter tab and then distort to distort the background into a charcole looking image. I then made it slightly darker so it seemed as if it is more "charcoley". I also did this to draw less attention to the background in contrast to the main image, but still to have it look stunning. Above on the left is what the background of my school magazine front cover.

Experiments with Close Up Photographs

Once I had my main image, I wanted to experiment with incorporating close up shots within the front cover. I decided to take close up shots in my 6th form common room, where there are sofas and therefore gives off a comfertable vibe. I decided that these close up shots I took were not appropriate for my main image so I did not use them for this reason. Although I did not use them this does show I have thought about using close ups within my main image.

School Magazine Survey & Results

Media School Magazine Survey (Answers & results in blue and in brackets)
11 Participants

1. Within a school magazine, would you beleive having interveiws with the teachers of the school would be of great importance to you as the reader?

PFFT, no definately not! (1)
Yes, i think it would give me a good insight of the school. (5)
Not of great importance, but it could be a little beneficial. (5)

2. Many magazines involve some sort of sport within them, therefore in a school magazine should it include a section about school sports?

Yes, school sports should be compulsory in a school magazine. (10)
No, I do not think many peole wuld be interested in that at all. (1)

3. No one likes to pick up a dense magazine with too many pages. How long should a magazine about a school be?

8-10 pages (1)
11-14 pages (5)
15-18 pages (4)
More than 18 pages (1)

4. As a reader of magazines, would you be at all interested in crosswords or puzzles?

Yeah, they're brilliant! (4)
Not at all, it would be more beneficial for me to stare at a wall. (0)
I would perhaps do them when I am extremely bored. (7)

5. If you were to flick through a school magazine, would you be interested in reading your horoscope if you were to find horoscopes in it?

Yes I would love to find my horoscope in any magazine! (4)
No, I don't really like reading them, they're faulse. (1)
From time to time, sometimes they can be quite engaging. (6)

6. For a school magazine, would you be interested to find reviews on whats new or/and the sporting leagues the school is part of?

Yes, that sounds exciting. (9)
No, that would just be boring. (2)

7. Would you be interested to find reviews about teachers acheivements in a school magazine?
Yes, very much so. (0)
No, that seems really dull! (3)
Perhaps, could depend on what the topic is. (8)

8. Which colour or colours would be most attractive to you on a front cover of a magazine?
Comment:
A1.
Bright Colours. Red,Yellow,Green.
A2.
Red and Black
A3.
Blue
A4.
White, Red , Black
A5.
Blue
A6.
Any colours of a vibrant shade otherwise in a complementary combination.
A7.
Blue
A8.
Blue, Red or Pink
A9.
Differnt colours that stand out the most.
A10.
Something bright and funky!

9. What size magazine are you most likely to enjoy picking up to read?

Tabloid, because it is not too big nor too small. (2)
Broadsheet, because they are quite big and you can get a lot of content on one page. (0)
A5 size, because it is small and compact. (1)
A4 size, because it is generally near the size of many magazines. (8)

10. Are you male or female and what age group do you fit in?

Male (5)
Female (6)

12-15 (1)
16-21(10)
22-26 (0)
27+ (0)

After collecting these results and analysing them I have come to realise that many people believe blue would be a very attractive colour for a magazine cover or the theme for a magazine. Blue was a favourite amongst the participants of the survey although they all generally think that bright colours should be used which work in contrast with each other. More than 50% of the population that took part in my survey were female although a fair amount that took the survey were males, so the results were not too unbalanced. My audience would love to read about sports reviews and the sporting leagues within school. Additionally, I found out that just less than half of the people who took part in the survey thought that having interveiws with the teachers of the school would be a little beneficial, where as equally the same amount of people thought it would give them a good insight of the school. These results have shown me answers that I perhaps was not expecting but I now know what my target audince will be looking for and my magazine can be based around these ideas.

Image Work On Photoshop

After I had finished adjusting the colours on the original photo to make it less blue and improve the quality of the photo, I wanted to use it alone, without having the background. I painted the background of the photo out by adding a layer mask on the new layer where the photo was copied to. Using the colours black and white, I could either paint parts of the photo out or back in, so I cut the figure out as perfectly as I could. As the person being framed was sitting down I could not cut around the figure completely as it would look like she is floating in only air, so therefore I used the shift key to create straight lines and cut out the rest of the figure in an exciting way but also to show the bench she is sitting on. I had decided that this would be my main image within my school magazine front cover.