For my final design magazine front cover I chose to use a photo as the background of the page, and use white writing on the top. The photo is of two sixth formers outside our school, although the photo is essentially dark, representing the smart dark clothing that is worn in sixthforms and schools, the faces of the girls are bright. This shows off the happy smiling expressions on their faces, and captures they're mood - they are happy to be in sixth form. Which is positive and what you want the magazine to represent to the readers.
Because it is a school magazine, the main audience is predominantly parents and students who attend that paticular school. This means you want the articles and headlines to show off the main attributes of the school, so by getting the models in the photo to smile and look happy, it shows that their is a good atmosphere.
I chose the title 'Idsall Informer' because although I want the magazine to appeal to the students and acquire a modern feel, the magazine still has to have the primary function of informing the parents and keeping them up to date about the activities around school. The title had to represent a formal approach that was also likeable and something that you could imagine people saying and catching onto. I did not want my magazine to be like a structured logical newspaper, because that would not appeal to all people. I think that I have kept this from happening, and designed a front cover that is interesting and different, but creative and representative of the positive feeling that the magazine presents.
The title stands out against the bright sky of the photo, I have chosen the colour green as it is Idsall Schools main colour and I have shadowed the writing so that it gives effect. The tagline 'bringing you the news from Idsall School' I have also chosen to be in green, because I want it to be specific to the magazine and recognisable on every issue. The headlines I have written in white, which contrast on the dark clothing. The writing for the headline and description is clearly visible and I have made sure it is short, basic and bold. On the third line 'Interviews Revealed' I have chosen to put the first letters of both words in a capital, this draws attention and stands out which is important as interviews is a popular feature in magazines and gives the feeling of 'exclusive'. The footer is also in white, because it links with the headline and stands out against the dark background.
I have put the date in the top right hand corner, it is in a simple black small font, however it is visible. The date is a neccesary element of a magazine, so the reader can keep the issues in order and make sure they are up to date with each magazine. In the bottom right hand corner of the magazine is the Idsall School logo. When I first got the picture of the photo, it was on a white background, so on publisher I set the background to transparent, so that when I placed the logo onto the magazine, it wasnt block colour on the background. This way the logo is subtle and fits in with the front cover background, however you know its there.
On the mock design of my front cover, I planned to include another two photos on top of the background, to represent smaller articles in the magazine. However, when I came to photographing samples and ideas for the final piece, I realised that by layering two photos on top of the background image, would make the cover too crowed. Also I thought that it side tracked from the positivity that the background image illustrates.
For my magazine cover I used Microsoft Publisher. I found it easy to use and it everything I needed to produce the front cover. For my main image I also used Adobe Photoshop CS5, to add brightness to it, and then increased the contrast levels of the photo so that the faces were more defined. I think that for my main task - producing a music magazine, I will look into what other programs I can use to create the pages. Although Microsoft Publisher was easy to use and had all the facilities I needed, I think that It would be helpful to me to explore the other options and look into which program would be most useful to the task.
When planning and designing my music magazine, I think I will look into what I could of done better for the school magazine task. Apart from using a more advanced and effective program to create my magazine, I think that I will do more research into other music magazines and what I like, what I don't like and what I think is/isn't effective. For this task I think it would of been more useful to me to look into other school magazines to give me help and more of an idea as to what I wanted my magazine to look like. I found it difficult to capture images initially as I did not know what type of image would be appealing and interesting for my front cover, and something that was related to school, so I also think I will look into music magazine photos and look at the styles of image I want. I also want to plan more in advance, what needs to be done and when, who my models are, clothing, surroundings, props.
For my contents page I went for a simple design however I wanted lots of photos to make the page interesting. Being someone that finds it difficult to concentrate on mass amounts of text, I decided to break up the text with images, and make sure that the text was basic and short but catchy and interesting. I have linked the photos with the page numbers, so the main stories are highlighted.
For the contents title, I chose to use simple but bold font in black. I did not want my contents page to be busy and fancy, as although the magazine has to also appeal to a younger audience, where mass amounts of text are concerned I think that simple is better. It makes the text easier to read as there isnt loads of photos and information piled around it and you can clearly see it and seperate it from the rest of the page. I chose for the background of the page to be white, so that the photos and writing stood out on it. Also I chose to layer the writing on top of a light grey box, as I think the layered look is very effective. However I chose to keep the colour light, because I find it very awkward and inconvenient when reading a magazine, if the background is too dark for you to read the writing.
For the photos I have chosen to use photos that show learning and progressing in school. There is one photo at the top, which I have placed next to the title, to break up the title and list of pages from eachother. For the other four photos I have chosen two of students sitting at the Mac computers - which shows off the technology at the school, and the other two photos are of other subjects and facilities offered at Idsall school - music and sports. I have photoshopped each of the photos using photoshop, making the images brighter. I think by making the images brighter it gives a positive feeling.
At the bottom of the list of text, there is a 'regulars' section. I think this is important as it shows the success of a magazine that it has 'regulars' and ca onstant section.
Overall I like the design of my contents page, I think that for a school magazine it fits the task well. Although with a music magazine I would like more colour, and gripping headlines and photos, for a school magazine you want the layout to be fairly simple and also appropriate. A school magazine is mostly read by the parents of students but also by future students and parents, and ofsted inspectors, so the magazine needs to appear formal and show off the successful parts of the school. It needs to appeal to people and make people impressed by what is happening around the school, and I think that my front cover and contents page show this.
Taking this task into account, I think I will choose a different approach for my music magazine. I want to definately plan more in advance for the music magazine and perhaps create a questionnaire to find out what people think makes a good music magazine. The music magazine task will be more than likely aimed at a more specific audience, so by targetting that audience and researching into what they like, can only lead to more success in this upcoming task.
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