"Highlight" - Preliminary Task - School Magazine

'Highlight'

Here is my front page of my school magazine.


Our preliminary task was to make a School College/Sixth Form Magazine and as I go to Folkestone School For Girls Sixth Form it only made sense to aim my magazine at sixth form girls between the ages of 16 and 18. I based my audience research on the pupils that attend my school to see what they would want to read. My questionnaire:







And from this questionnaire I gathered the following info (along with some qualitative research which I cannot present in a graph format):


Therefore I knew that in my magazine I needed to include:

• Interviews with Teachers (15%)
• Games (13%)
• Agony Aunts (11%)
• Career Help (10%)
• Local Information (10%)

And as you can see on my front cover it details that the above content will be present in the magazine.

While I carried out my audience research I drafted the basic structures of my contents page and my front cover. Here are the original sketches:

At this point I chose to have a green/pink/white/blue colour scheme as these colours compliment each other but also define the audience, particularly the pink (though stereotypical, it is effective). Choosing the name of the magazine was quite a difficult part for me as I struggled to think of original names but then I thought of 'Highlight', I used it because 1) Highlighters are used in school for notes (especially in sixth form) and 2) it also implies that the magazine is a highlight of the school. I then went on to recreate my contents plan on the computer, which is here: (NB: The page is scanned in so the colours are duller, but in real life they are brighter and the same as on the front cover).

These are some of my final images that I took (unedited).I used several models to see what would work best for the front cover. Here are just a few (i took about 40 in total!):


I decided on using the one below, as I think it shows the optimistic attitude people should have in our sixth form, also as the model is smiling and laughing it makes the magazine look more attractive. I thought it was important to have an image of the typical reader that I had aimed for on the front cover, so the right target audience would be attracted. I also quite liked the positioning in the below picture, despite the fact the model is not placed centrally.
The girl in the picture is called Lucy. I was really happy with this photo as it portrayed the positivity from most students in the school, but is also a fun image and it suited my colour scheme well. The fact it was taken by one of the school signs also means that the magazine is instantly recognisable for the school from which its come. However for my music magazine my image will have to be a lot different because of the purpose of a music magazine.

.When we did our 'Analysis of Similar Media Texts' we decided that the image on this magazine:
worked well and expressed the positive feelings of the girls in the image towards the school and towards education. So I wanted to get a similar effect. Also, as you can see I used a similar colour scheme, however I only noticed this after evaluation which suggests that both magazines have thought to target the audience by using the blue/green/pink/white colour scheme.

Overall I am glad that my school magazine looks good and works well, and the task has helped me develop my ideas for my music magazine but also realize that it needs to be quite the opposite of this task as I intend to aim for a Pop/Rock genred magazine. Some other aspects that have prepared me for the main task are:

• My audience research needs to be more specific and ask questions that will help me to give me required knowledge rather than useless information as I wasn't going to really create a whole magazine
• I need to do more research into music magazines, to help me construct my magazine
• I must plan more for my images and decide what the images effect is going to be