Vessy School Magazine

Throughout the preliminary task project, I have managed to create a well composed front cover and an effective contents page for a Sixth Form students.Before even starting on publications production we had looked at different types of school magazines and the audience they direct to. I remembered one particular magazine- Mcdonogh because it was extremely effective in balancing both relaxing, fun mood with formal, mature look. I aimed to produce a magazine as natural and realistic as Mcdonogh which would appeal to students and motivate and encourage them to be active and ambitious.The preliminary task has helped me to learn about the main focus of magazines and the features that make a magazine publications effective and appealing to the target audience.

Use, Develop and Challenge
During the production of the front cover I used, developed and challenged the forms and conventions of a typical school magazine. Many of the features of my magazine would relate to a typical school magazine including the A4 format, the articles and the bold,obvious heading font I have used. All these elements made my magazine look more familiar to students which is very important because when people have a specific school magazine scheme it is quite difficult to attract their attention if the magazine look nothing like the existing magazine.For example, if the magazine is not in a portrait but a landscape format it would not attract peoples' attention as much as if it's in an ordinary school magazine format.

Most of the existing school magazines have school pupils on their front covers because this attracts peoples attention and is likely to increase sales/demand for the magazine.I felt it was important to use this convention, however I altered and transformed the images in such a way that it looked natural and realistic and went well with the background.I've inserted the close-ups on the right side of the cover.The result was a well balanced front cover image because the close-up balanced the trees on the opposite side of the image. I felt it was incredibly important to show that I know how vital balance is for any publication, picture or photograph because if the objects in the image are not equally balanced the viewer's attention would be drawn to all the elements of the cover that look not in the right place. Imagine you are looking at a neatly written exam paper with one single cross out. The correction would be the element that attracts your attention the most.

I had an argument with my teacher about my idea to in-cooperate natural images of leaves into my cover and place the strip lines and any other text onto the leaves. My teacher was not quite happy with that idea because this is something that can not be seen in typical magazines. However with all my respect to my teacher, I carried on with my idea because I want my work not to be like other existing magazines.I want the magazine to look as fresh, original ad unique as the audience are ready to take in and accept. I am absolutely confident with my idea and I'm ready and able to justify and explain the successfulness of my challenge.However I can never be 100% sure that the audience will be happy with the risk I have taken because risks are risks and you can not be sure in the effect they have on people.

Institutions
There is no institution that would distribute my magazine because it is a school magazine related to one school only. However it would be a very good idea to occasionally distribute the magazine to other Secondary schools so that they can see the benefits of attending Fortismere Sixth form. This will attract more people to the sixth form and encourage them to come to Fortismere. Moreover distributing the magazine to other school would improve Fortismere reputation and connections.

Audience
My magazine would be mostly directed to teenagers attending the sixth form.However other people are always welcomed to read and enjoy the magazine even though the articles and pictures in it would be focused on student attending the Sixth form.
There is no specific ethnic group or nationality the magazine is aimed at because I want my magazine to be for everybody. The magazine is also a source of presenting the school to the community. I want people who are not attending Fortismere to look at the magazine and wish they go there. That is why I have not concentrated on specific ethnicity, style or hobbies.

I used many different devices to attract my target audience such as appropriate language, students related pictures, bright eye-catching colours, educational and entertaining articles. The electronic survey I have created clearly indicates that people wanted the magazine to be presented in mature but fun way. This means that the magazine had to be created in such a way that it was both educational and entertaining. I have included many elements that match this criteria including the strip lines, the overall look of the cover and the articles outlined in the contents page. There is no specific social group represented within the magazine because the magazine is for all the different students attending the Sixth Form. The only common interest between the audience of the magazine is that they all want to prosper in life and achieve their goals. The magazine is therefore created to motivate and help students succeed.

Technical skills gained
When we started off the course I had no idea how does Photoshop work because I had not used it before. This is why I have found the preliminary task extremely important in helping me develop beneficial technical skills that will be very useful for me in my education and potential career. WE were having lesson in class on how to use Photoshop to adjust, edit and manipulate images. I have learned many new things such as using layers, using the basic tools of Photoshop and how to convert the format of a file (e.g. word file to Jpeg image).

We were all required to post our work in progress, ideas and publications electronically using blogger. At the beginning of the project I was not familiar with the way blogger works. However my Blogger knowledge has progressed a lot throughout the preliminary task because I feel more comfortable and confident using Blogger now. I have learnt many new "tricks" to make my digital blog look more interesting and to present my work in a more effective way. I thought it was a great idea to change the template and layout of my blog. I did this by changing the template HTML of my blog and correcting the layout settings on my dashboard. The result was a school related background which is appropriate for the theme of my task.Another extra I did in order to make my presentation better is to correct the colours and fonts of the text so that it goes well with the background template I have downloaded.

I will definitely use the technological knowledge and skills I have gained to produce an effective and excellent piece of music magazine publication later on in my project. I will also make sure that my digital blog looks original and appropriate for the concept of the project.

Improvements
There are many things that could have been done to improve the front cover and contents page I have produced. First of all, the quality of my work should be improved because the final front cover does not look very professionally done. I will be more careful with he production of my music magazine front cover and will ensure that I use initially arranged and composed photos. Another thing that could improve my production is the actual camera set-ups when capturing the photos. I am doing AS Photography which will help me choose the right settings to capture a well exposed and colour balanced image.Moreover, the front cover could have been improved if I have included pictures of people from different ethical groups and genders to suggest that this school is discrimination free and welcomes everyone to the 6th form. I suppose my Contents page could have been improved if its more focused on the actual writing than on the picture. Furthermore, I believe that my contents page could have been improved if I in-cooperate feature pictures within the page. For example, if I include a picture of Mr. Kenny next to the line that introduces the article to the audience.

Overall, I am pleased with my preliminary task work because I have managed to produce an attractive publications that match my initial aims.Before starting I was not confident with using editing software such as Photoshop or even Paint. I feel that the Front cover and Contents page would be successful in attracting the target audience and presenting the Sixth form in an educational and entertaining way. Despite the number of improvement that could have been done to make my work look better I am happy with the preliminary task because it was an excellent practice for my real coursework.

I have used those pictures in my front cover because they are so realistic and natural and go very well with my background image. I have inserted them onto my original image by using Photoshop to crop, copy and then paste them onto the background layer of my initial design.I am now going to create the cover lines for my magazine and insert them over the leaves pictures.

Click on the picture above to see my initial front cover idea and its annotations.

After designing my questionnaire I posted its link on my facebook wall and asked 8 people to respond to it. The results show that 100% of the participants who are interested in the Sixth form magazine are 16-20 years old. This means that Sixth formers or students attending college show a great interest to Sixth form magazines. Considering this I have decided my magazine to be aimed at Sixth formers rather than younger people or parents. However I am not going to make the front cover look specifically targeted at Sixth formers because I want it to be appealing to everybody. More than 66% of the people indicated that they would prefer the magazine to be published monthly.I think that this is a good idea because its not too frequent and its designers will have enough time to produce the magazine that includes many pictures and articles. Considering the results that all the people are willing to pay less than 50 pence for the magazine, I have decided to make the school magazine free for people attending the Sixth form and 50 p for people outside the Sixth form. However everyone will be welcomed to donate money for the production of the magazine because the raised capital would be invested in magazine improvement equipments such as cameras or better quality paper.


Another important aspect of my magazine is its content. Over Eighty-three percent of the people pointed out that the most important thing in a school magazine is school news.The rest of them claimed to think that student/teacher related articles are more important for them. I will make sure that all the recent school news are included in my magazine so that students are better informed about what is going on in school. I will also pay attention on articles written by or about student and teachers because this would appeal to my demographic.

My project is based on designing a front cover and a contents page of a magazine so I have questioned people what is the most attracting feature of the front cover according to their tastes and opinions. Over sixty percent of the people indicated that interesting pictures of teacher/students or the school make up an excellent front cover. That is why I have decided to use at least two different images in my front cover. The rest of the people said that the cover lines are the most appealing aspect of the front cover. I will make sure that my cover lines are school related and interesting so that the magazines attracts the vast majority people in the Sixth Form.

My questionnaire is incredibly helpful in outlining what people's expectations are of a Sixth form magazine i.e. how should the magazine look like. Question number six was important for showing me how the magazine should be presented. The results tell me that everyone likes the magazine to be presented in different ways- some of the people(33%) prefer the magazine to look fun and cool while other(33%) indicate that they do not want the publication to be too colourful and childish. The rest of the people shared the opinion, that they want the magazine to look elegant smart and mature. These answers are contradictive as they are inconsistent in showing what do people want the magazine to be like. Therefore I have decided to produce a front cover which is both fun and elegant,interesting but yet not too childish.

In conclusion I would like to say that the questionnaire help me form an idea about the look, the price and the font cover of my school magazine. I know for sure that I am going to in-cooperate student pictures in my front cover. I want my magazine to look motivating and encouraging to student so that they are inspired to study and improve their future. There will be many articles in my magazines that will tend to help people in their revision and exams. The magazine should also look interesting because after all we are still children and need something to entertain us.
I am now going to work on my final front cover and will make sure that questionnaire's responses are considered in publication composition and design.
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I wanted my magazine title to be short but effective because i want to put it on the top of another image and then insert them onto my background theme.After careful consideration of another possible titles such as "4tis" and "4mag" i came up with "4U" because its a short monogram written in a teenage slang (4 meaning for and u for you).I love the title i came up with because 4=for is also the beggining of my school name so the title can be annotated in two ways: Firstly,it suggest that the magazine is for everyone as it says for you to the person who is looking at it; the title can also be interpreted as 4=for=fortismere for you. The fact that the title has multiple connotations makes me even happier with it because its confusing, fun but still smart and profesionally chosen. By having a title like this im showing to yhe reader that the magazine is for everyone e.i. it does not have a specific audience. It is made for sixth formers but younger students and parents are also welcomed to read and enjoy it.I am now going to experiment with size and fonts of the heading and its position on the cover.

I have decided to use this picture for a background layer because its realistic, interesting and well lid. The picture suggests that sometimes life leads you to an unexpected places but your journey should be interesting and beautiful (as the trees surrounding the way are). It could also suggests that Fortismere is the perfect future path to take. I am still unsure of what my final publication would look like but i will definitely use this natural picture for a background theme. I am now going to use photoshop to adjust the image, improve its quality and test different ideas by manupulating the background photo and incooperating some close-up photos within the main image.p>

I started off by taking photographs I can use in my final publication.

Most of the pictures were situated in the school because  it’s important for the front cover of the magazine to show real people from the sixth form. I also took some landscape pictures of Alexandra park because I want the front cover to look natural and realistic.

I have begun by learning how to use image editing programs such as paint and photoshop to prepare images for publication and work with text. We were having lesson on how to use photoshop to improve the quality and appearance of an image and how to use layers to manipulate and combine a number of images and texts. 
I have practiced my photoshop skills on an image of the school playground which I took in break. I have used the paintbrush to paint out the top area of my image. I have also used the Level and Curves option to alter the proportions of different tones and shades to make my image look more exposed and improve its quality. I have experimented by using a various selection tools to select and further edit parts of the image such as the magic wand tool and the lasso tool. 
Everything that I have learnt will help me produce an effective and more appealing piece of front cover publication for a school magazine.

I have produced an on-line questionnaire to help me find out what people would want to see in a Sixth Form magazine and what are their expectations for its content. The results would also help me determine my target audience because i am still unsure of whether the magazine should be foccusing on students and parents or students only. I have decided to produce an on line questionnaire because the use of ICT makes it easier and quicker for the people to access and fill in the survey. My questionnaire consists of 10 different questions which will help me produce a Sixth Form magazine that people would enjoy reading. I have included questions asking specifically about the front cover as my first task is to produce a front cover of a sixth form magazine.

Click on the link below to respond to my on line survey. Thank you!

Click Here to take survey

To prepare myself for the preliminary task I have analysed the front cover of an independent school magazine which is shown on the left. I have looked at two main aspects of the front cover- denotation which is the literal meaning of media texts and connotation which are all the association that are made when interpreting a media text. I have then suggests a number of improvement which could make the front cover more appealing to the viewer. 

Denotational meaning:    

Harrow Tammil School magazine.The cover looks interesting and attractive because of the variety of warm colours in it. There are a lot of music instruments in the picture. There is a writting in another language (probably Arabic).There is a religious picture on the top of the cover.

Connotational meaning:

The target audience are both parents and students who have interest in music and art related subjects . The general mise-en-scene of the cover is carefully created using a lot of music instruments and art objects .This suggests that the school is a music or creative art school. The writing in Arabic suggests that this is an Arabic school which is more welcoming to Arabic Muslim people.The image underneath the writting suggests this is a religious and traditional school.The warm colours emit positive energy and create a positive and happy image of the school which attracts people's interest. The carefully selected mise-en-scene makes association with oranisation and succession.The border works especially well in giving a final touch to the image, structuring and balancing the poster. Most of the objects are of similar sizes which balances the overall picture.

More effective image can be achieved by:

• avoiding the use of orange. Most of the objects are coloured in orange and this makes he image too monotonous and a bit boring. Even when orange is a warm colour it also creates negative association such as danger and fire. If different positive colours are used e.g.pink and yellow, the image will be varied and interesting. Objects will stand out and attract more attention.
• The image can be improved by not having foreign language writings and pictures because this restricts the target audience. Even if the school wants to attract Muslim people mainly, including a writing in different language might seem a little rude to other people who will not understand it.
• Overall the front cover is successful in meeting its aim to attract (potential)students' and their parents' attention. The poster is interesting and attractive and skillfully done.