My school magazine



Before creating my own school magazine, I had to research and understand various points that I had to take forward into making. First I had to choose a target audience (I chose anyone that had a part in the school ie students & parents), and then came the points that I would find out upon research of other people's magazines.

 

When looking at school magazines that other people have created, there were certain features that stood out to me as being typical of a school magazine, and that I would probably have to include in my own version. These were;

-Noticeable masthead

-Main background image

-School logo

-School-related topic coverlines

 

This is a basic layout that I drew when drafting my school magazine cover:

 

 

 

 

 

I tried to reflect these examples onto my own magazine in making, which is seen when looking at the cover. My masthead has its own image which the title ('Magazine') is shown on, and the background image is below the masthead which is normal in magazine cover creating, and it is bigger than the masthead because it is the main background image. My cover also has the school's logo in the corner of the section used for my masthead, along with a slogan ('southfield's best magazine') and a price (50p). I chose to put the price of the magazine as quite cheap because due to it being designed to be published for a school, students will not want to pay a lot of money for it. All of the main coverlines seen on the left are to do with events happening at the school and are targeted at any of the year groups in the school, and not just one eg. upper school or lower school. Additionally, extra coverlines on the right side of the cover would appeal to the parents of students rather than the students themselves, so my target audience is obviously anyone that has some part in the school.



 

 

For my contents page, as a result of research I knew that I would have to use bold colours to attract readers to reading the articles- I used red as it is a bright colour and it stands out with importance so that readers would be interested in reading them. I also knew that page numbers had to be equally bold so that readers would know where to find what they were looking for, so I used the same size font as the article titles so it would be obvious what page everything was on.
The 'contents' title is similar to the masthead on the cover in that it is bigger, in a different colour, and bolder than any other text on the page. However, on the contents page I used the same font for everything to keep regularity on the page.
I also put an advert-like bit on the bottom right, which is also used to attract readers and include them in the magazine itself, especially as most readers would like a free gift to come with their magazine (also very common in real-life magazines).

 

 

I think improvements I could make when creating magazines are things such as a more complicated/diverse layout, a wider range of fonts and variety in general, and making it sure it isn't too simple and that can come across as boring to readers. When I make my music magazine I need to remember these points as making sure that I improve on them will help me greatly.