Prem Coursework- Contents page

Firstly, I had to come up with an idea for my contents page and how it will compliment and tie in with the front page of my magazine. So one thing I decided on from the beginning of my thoughts is that I would keep the colour scheme the same. Once I decided on the colour of my contents page (black and blue) I could then build on it. In addition to this I thought of places of where the title of 'Contents' could go and at first I tried putting along the right hand side of the page so that it went vertically, but saw that it looked slightly odd on the page and went for a more traditional position for it, which was at the top of the page.

For the text on my Contents page I decided to use the same font as the front cover and made the font big enough for the main stories and articles so it stood out. I used a similar but notably different font for the description of each article/story as I thought that it made the main topic stand out with the description of it also standing out. The colour white was again utilised for the fonts as it works really well against the black and darkish tone of blue.

For my contents page, instead of repeating the stories of my front page onto my contents i thought of placing the a minimized image of my magazine front cover on the contents page and then indicate what pages each item is on.

After building the text of my contents page, I needed to decide on what images I was going to include and since the main story on the front page was about being a head boy/girl, I thought it would be a great idea to take pictures of two people (one a girl and the other a boy) and using their pictures as the current head boy and girl. I thought of this as it would relate to the front page and go with the magazine perfectly. I've decided to place both my head boy and head girl opposite each other to allow room for the text to fit and so it fits in with the main story about the race for the next pair of heads. I also had the head boy wear a poppy so it tied in with the remeberance issue of the month.

Prem Coursework- Plan for the 30/10/09

As before, for my front page, I have decided to come up with a plan to create a timeline for my contents page and to create deadlines for the different stages of it. By Saturday 30th October I hope to:

Come up with ideas for my contents- This meaning to come up with mental ideas of what I could include on my contents page and also to think of a layout for my contents.

Take any additional pictures for my contents page- Take pictures that are necessary to my contents if that means taking more pictures I will have to do that at some point.

Come up with other stories to include in the magazine- For this I will have to brainstorm and jot down other ideas to put on my contents page that will make my magazine.

Construct contents page- Constructing the contents page will require a lot of time as i need to carefully produce the page making sure everything is accurate. Whilst doing this, I have to keep in mind how I am going to link it to my front page.

Make any adjustments (if needed)- After constructing the contents page I need to fine tune it and make sure there aren't any problems with it and that there are no mistakes and everything is accurate.

Prem Coursework- Presentation of Front Cover and Comlpletion

After creating an initial front cover for my school/college magazine I presented it to my class, using them as a focus group. I explained everything I did and explained why I did it....

After receiving my criticisms and evaluation on my magazine front cover I went back to the drawing board and edited the things I needed to change to make my front cover better, more appealing and overall more professional. I added lighting effects to make the pictures look like they were part of the page and I also created an outer glow around them to make them stand out. I decided to keep the font I chose as it went for my informal approach to this task.

However, whilst editing I couldn't decide on what could go in that big empty space on my page. At first I thought of a badge, then it hit me that since it is an November issue and it is a time where remembrance Sunday is celebrated AND schools normally sell them I thought I could design a poppy there and alert everyone to buy one now to remember the heroes that died in honour of their country.



This is the final product of my magazine cover:

Prem coursework- Survey

Today, I took a survey of 30 people in my common room about my potential title ideas and slogans to see which one was more preferred and would inevitably be my title for my magazinediv>
Title survey

100% student: 2

The Student mag: 18

3:30: 7

Your Future: 3

Slogan survey

Be one step ahead: 22

100% student material: 2

Too cool for teachers: 6

For my photos I didn’t want to take a survey as I thought it was the editors choice of what photos to choose and I already had an idea in mind about what I was going to do and I didn’t want to survey the photos.

Prem Coursework- Magazine ideas

One of the first things I did after being briefed was to think about a title that I could work around and would suit the theme and style of the magazine. So firstly, I brainstormed ideas for potential titles for my magazines:

After surveying my title ideas I found that ‘the Student mag’ was favoured and I agreed as it is snappy, simple title that ‘does what it does on the tin’. Also, as it has to be a school/college magazine and is aimed at students I wanted the title to have a certain level of informality as students tend to get bored with straight up formal magazines.

After choosing a title for my title for the magazine I decided to come up with a slogan/catchphrase for my magazine that can be associated with the magazine.
I found that that ‘be one step ahead!’ was a popular one amongst my peers as it was short, memorable and snappy.

After creating a title and slogan, I could then work around it and build a look around it and the other areas of magazine production which are:

· Content
· Colours
· Style
· Font

Content: For the contents of my magazine cover I decided to include pictures of students working in different areas of school life and subjects. For example, people on computers, people in lessons etc. I was also thinking of putting a collage of photos that I will be taking. In order to acquire the photos I am hoping to go into lessons around school, with permission of teachers, and take photos of the learning environment. However, I wanted a main big picture in the middle of the front cover and my idea for this was a picture of a student with their head split into four and have different genders and races in those four sections. For my contents page I was thinking of having a collage of the photos taken.

Colours: For my magazine I also had to come up with colours to put on the front cover and colour schemes and I thought of using a range of aquatic, calm colours: A variety of blues, whites, reds and greys and blacks. I am choosing these colours as I believe it will complement the pictures, title and theme of my magazine and make it look attractive to my target audience. I am hoping that the blues and whites would be dedicated to the front cover and the greys and blacks to the background to make the contents of the page stand out.

Style: For the style of my magazine I approached it with a ‘less is more’ attitude. I decided to do this as I found, from my research, that having less things on the page is more noticeable than a front page being crowded for this particularly magazine anyway (school/college). However, having less things on a page means that the actual contents of the page has to be powerful and get the right message across.

Font: From what I learnt during my research process, I found that Fonts play a very big and important part in magazine production and everything has to be done for a purpose. So I will try a trial and error with my fonts and then survey the titles and see which one appeals to my target audience. One thing is for sure that I have to do is make sure every title I produce has to compliment the front cover and stand out.

Prem Coursework- Experimenting

Task 2- building a front cover and experimenting with Software

For this task it allowed me to be creative and design a front cover for any magazine. This allowed me to put everything I researched into practice and allowed me to get a feel of the basic software that is used to make magazine covers (e.g. Photoshop).

The first thing I did once given this task was to think of a certain style magazine. After looking at some pictures I decided to do a modeling magazine and chose a picture of Tyra banks as she is a model icon and since modeling is aimed at women is would be appropriate to have a female model as my main image.

After choosing my idea I then opened editing software and began to edit and experiment with my picture of Tyra banks. I airbrushed her hair and added more shadows to make it look very glamorous. I also tried to make it crisp and tried o make the picture part of the page instead off it.
When I finished editing my picture I then began to build around it to construct the front cover of my modeling magazine. To begin with I thought of a title and came up with ‘MODEL magazine’ as it clearly does what it says on the tin without taking the risk of being clever with a title that people might not get. I made the font Arial (black) at size 50 so I took up a quarter of the page and made it stand out and caught the eye. All the other text on the front cover I made to stand out of the page and I used pink for headlines and black for the text underneath it.

After finishing the contents of the page I polished it and made it look as professional as possible. I decided to have my main picture as the focus of the page and so it had to take the whole page up.
In this lesson, I learnt about the elements of a magazine and how they should be placed effectively to give the sufficient impact. After I created the front cover I was also given feedback on how it looks and whether it gives the right impact. Also it was a startin point to think of some ideas for my magazine cover.

Comments given:

‘The picture is very impactful and the appropriate’- Fellow student

‘Colour schemes are wisely chosen’- fellow student

‘Title is a bit blocky and not what you would associate with modeling. Good use of pictures and headlines’- Teacher

Final product


Note: the picture of Tyra banks was used for experimental purposes only

Prem Coursework - Magazine Research

In today’s lesson I researched and studied the main attributes for a magazine cover and thought about the decisions made behind magazine covers and the way they are. I looked at: Font, Style, Contexts and colors and how the convey a magazine cover. In addition to this, I looked at how different magazines are aimed a different people and genders. For example the way that Console magazines are aimed at gamers and mostly males.

Task 1- research task

For this task I researched different magazine covers and answered 4 questions:

What is the style?

What is the context?

What are the colours?

After researching different magazines I decided to do an evaluation on three contrasting magazines. Classic rock, PC pro and NOW magazine.

What is the STYLE? First of all I distinguished type of magazines they both were. I saw that PC Pro was a very formal, informative magazine which fitted it purpose perfectly as it is a computer magazine and needs to be formal to get its information across as it has to be accurate. Classic rock was a very entertaining, medium level formality magazine. Classic rock aims at music fans and the front cover wasn’t too formal as it had punch lines. Now magazine is a very informal gossip magazine that has a very ‘mum’ feeling to it is a gossip magazine that includes celebs that looks like it would appeal to mothers. With styles also comes an age range and gender affiliation to which the magazine aims at. By looking at the front cover of the magazine cover only I came up with a 20-45 year old range for PC pro magazine which is aimed at men. Classic rock is aimed at men of about 18-40 years old and Now is aimed at woman ranging between 16-50.

What are the COLOURS? Next question I answered looked at the colour used on the magazine fronts. I saw that PC Pro used a very bright coloured background and used contrasting colours to make everything clear on the page. A range of whites, blacks, reds and yellows were used. Classic Rock used more dark colours like black a greys and was contrasted by gold’s and whites and yellows which made the text and title stand out. Now magazine used a range of bright quirky colours such as purples, reds, light blues and yellows. I also noticed that these colours were very feminine reinforcing that it is aimed at woman. All the colours used for the magazine covers made the image of the magazine very attractive and appealing.

What are the CONTENTS? For this I looked at everything that was one the front covers of my chosen magazines. PC Pro had an image of many laptops clearly showing what the topic of the magazine was. Also the text was clear and I noticed that the title was in a box at the top left hand corner of the magazine. The Font used was very blocky and compliment the style of the magazine. Classic Rock had its title in gold lettering at the top of the page and had an iconic picture of a rock star which was the main focus of the magazine around it the text was based and contrasted the dark lettering with brighter colours. Now magazine had pictures of celebrities and very easily recognizable people which were deliberately used to catch he attention of people. Also the title of the magazine was big and covered the top of the page. also all the fonts around it was big clear I found out that now uses a Helvetica font which is very clear and bold, which catches the eye.

In this lesson, I purely looked at the magazine covers and learnt that everything on a magazine there is meant is done on purpose for a purpose. Even size, for example, is all done on purpose.

Prem coursework- Plan for the 18/10/09

To help me to stay on track with my preliminary coursework task I have decided to blog what I hope to achieve by Sunday 18th October. I have decided to keep a plan for my coursework as it will help discipline me to keep to my own set deadlines.

By this Sunday I hope to have:

Done a bit of background research to the topic- This means me researching magazines and looking at the different things that compose a magazine cover and why it has been done in that certain way.

Experiment with software- experiment using magazine editing software such as Photoshop

Come up with basic ideas for my magazine front cover- Think of potential titles, slogans and layouts for my magazine front cover. This is where my research comes in to help.

Surveyed potential items- Survey amongst my peers my ideas and see which ones they prefer to include on my front cover.

Taken photos- This meaning that I go around my school taking pictures that I believe will be suitable for my front cover.

Update blog- Update all my findings and show evidence of it.

Created a front cover to show to a focus group on Monday 19th October