School Magazine Analysis

Today, I was looking at magazines from King Edwards VI High School.  In each magazine there was similar content.
 I took notes on what was included with in the magazine to give me a rough idea of what could be included in my own magazine that will be made. 
A few things that was common is each magazine that was looked at was:
Notices and events
Competitions
Images
Contents page
Interactions

This is the 2006 front cover of the magazine that I analysed.

 My first thoughts of this magazine is that having pictures of students that attended this school in the background was a good idea however the colour that was chosen made the front cover quiet dull and made the magazine seem boring which gave a bad first impression of the front cover.

 The biggest mistake made on this front cover is that the name of the magazine is in the bottom half of the page which does not make it stand out or noticeable. 
 To begin with I thought that this was sub- heading because of the font size and the positioning of the text but I later realized that it was the actual heading and 'KEHS' was not the title. 
This was mostly because KEHS was at the top of the page of the font was bigger making it more noticeable.

 Also it is very hard to identify whether the heading  is apart of the image of the bird.
I also think that the image of the bird ruins the collage that has been placed in the background, this is mostly because too much has been put on one page which makes it look amateur.

 I have notice that this magazine does not have a lot of headlines or other stories to get the reader interested in what to forward to when reading this magazine. 
for example other magazines will include headlines to wow the reader but this magazine does not include any which is disappointing.

This is the contents page.

After analyzing the front cover of the magazine I started to analyze the contents that was created as well because I will be creating a contents page for my own magazine.

My first thoughts of this contents page is that it looks sophisticated because of the layout that has been used and the image of the bird stands out in front of the bright white background.

 The font size of Welcome has been increased to make it eye catching and intrigues the reader.

Underneath the image is a couple paragraphs that speaks about what happened in the year. 
on the right side of the page their is the contents of what is included in the magazine.

Creating the survey

Today I had to create a survey to get a rough idea of what people are interested in when reading different magazines.
 I struggled to think of  relevant questions for people answer.
To create the survey I used Survey Monkey which was a very useful website  because it had a variety of different ways to display my questions on such as drop down and multiple choice.

For my first question that I made: What is your gender? 

I used a multiple choice so the students ca easily click on the circle and select what gender they are rather than selecting the option from a drop down or writing it in themselves.

 for a couple questions where I wanted students to write there answer I used a comment box which allows them to write a detailed answer giving me more information. 

I have finished creating my survey which means that I can send it to students by email who are in 6th or in the lower years.

 I will send them the link for my survey which will give me more data for my market research.

Imitation of magazine

15th October

Today in media I  had to continue making the front cover on Indesign.
The purpose of this task was to understand how to use the program and get used to using it as we will be using it for our final piece. 
The magazine that I was using was COSMOPOLITAN. So far i have been able to make the magazine however I did find some stages difficult such as putting the grid lines in the correct positions, inputting text boxes and changing different fonts.

The first stage of using Indesign was to put the guide lines in the correct places in order to layout the images and texts correctly.
The next step was to include the main  heading and other feature by using the grid lines that I set up.
 This did take  quite along time to do because I did not know how to use Indesign properly. 
I included the main heading by inserting a text box with in the guidelines to help with the positioning.
The magazine that I have been creating is now looking like the finished piece. 
I have added the image that has been used in the actual magazine.
 I used another program called Photoshop to crop and edit the image giving it a professional look.

 I am happy with the work that I have completed and the progress that I have made. 
By doing this task it has given me more confidence using Adobe Indesign and also Adobe Photoshop.  
I can improve my front cover by using the guidelines better to position the text and images more accurately on the page making it look more the actual magazine.

start of Blogger

During the course of the year I will be creating this blog showing the work that I have completed and how I am finding the task.
 The task consist of a preliminary exercise and a main task. 
The preliminary task consist of using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/ college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close up plus some appropriately laid- out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program. The main task includes the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.