Evaluation of school magazine

For my preliminary task I was given the task to design and make the front cover and contents page for a school magazine. Straight away I was keen to begin my work as I already have a good strong interest in magazines. I split my making of the magazine into sections, the planning, my research, photography and then putting it all together to create my final piece. I feel already I had a good understanding of the key conventions of a magazine¸ from past knowledge and making of magazines. I planned my ideas, and feel that I put them all together to create the best magazine I could. I believe that my effort throughout was consistent, and I was willing to learn new skills for etc when using Indesign. I feel my final magazine pages hugely fit the brief and the conventions of a realistic school magazine. I believe that my front cover really stands out, the use of the school colours, strong medium close up of student taking up half the page and the good use of fonts and heading, all grab the attention of potential readers. I that my contents page looks very realistic and now I have a good understanding of how industries use photo software such as Indesign and Photoshop, When looking at my work I think that the work I produced does reflect my hard effort and passion for media studies, especially in the form of magazines.



My images I used for my magazine were all images that I went out and conducted and myself, here giving it the traditional school surroundings. I captured photos of all different age groups and genders, here because I got a realistic approach to if this was a real school magazine and was being aimed at all years of 7-13. I decided that for the image on my front cover, I would use a student from year 11, as this is classed as a mature student and I feel for the colours and layout of the cover it fitted in perfectly. I Photo shopped the image, just adding a little brightness and contrast to make specific elements stand out, for example the school badge and the models eyes making the bluer so its more eye catching to potential readers. I think that the layout of my images on the contents page fit perfectly, and tremendously make it look like a professional contents page for this type of magazine. The landscape image at the top of that page automatically brighten up the page, because the image is out a group of friends of which I took of year 11 students, outside, with bright colours al being shown. Down the right hand side there is also 3 images, again 2 of which are of students again of different ages, some from year 9 and sixth form. I decided that I wanted all of the images to look as professional as possible, using a plain background and trying not to manipulate and change the images. I wanted to keep the contrast on pictures and colours the same, so simple yet classic and effective photos were taken. On the cover and the contents page I wanted to keep the same colours and fonts throughout, to keep a consistent theme and professional layout. I used the colours same as from our school, red, black, navy and white, and I tried to use the images to fit around all of these colours and layouts. I feel my photography skills were put to the test, but I do however feel I put much effort in to put the photos together and make the images the best I could, and contributing to making my magazine fit the conventions and look like a professional product.




For this task, it was the first time I had ever used the software Indesign and Photoshop. Here however I saw a opportunity to learn the skills so that again in the future I would know how to use these and apply them to my work. I found it very interesting using software that is used in media industries, as an insight for me for the future. For my front cover, I used Microsoft publisher to conduct it, as I felt comfortable using this program. For my contents page I used Indesign, which at first was a challenge as you learn how to use it and the skills as you go through putting your work together which can be very time consuming. However on the other hand I feel that in the future I will be using Indesign and Photoshop for most of my publication work, as the standard at the end was much higher than I had ever used before. It gave a professional layout, good structure and the use of applying colours and photos was easy. I was pleased with the result as it made it look like a very professional product, and alongside with my front cover which I had made on publisher I feel all of it fitted together perfectly, because I followed the same conventions throughout, the same colour scheme, the same fonts and the pictures all had a particular theme.



Overall i’m extremely happy with my preliminary task of a school magazine. I learned so much on top of my knowledge of magazines. I feel that the skills I learned I can now put together and forward when doing other publication work, especially in the areas of software such as Indesign and photo manipulation like Photoshop. I’m extremely happy with the professional look and finish of my magazine, it had all of the key conventions of a proper magazine, the photos were took to the best standard I could and the time and effort I feel I put it contributed widely to the professional finished looking product.

Here is a copy of my school magazine front cover.

Here is a copy of my prelinary task of which i did. I was given the task to make a front cover and contents page, and here is the contents page which i made of In design.