As a practise for my final A Level media coursework; a music magazine. I was asked to produce a preliminary task which was to create a school magazine front cover and contents page. To make this magazine, I carried out a survey finding out what people want in the magazine, had lessons in school about how to use photoshop in order to design the magazine cover, done research on other school magazines and by testing out different ideas had to plan what i wanted mine to look like.



I wanted my school magazine to give a bright, happy, positive approach to school and education and to achieve this I used many different devices to create this impression and mood.

1. I started with a bright based background of an image which is very colourful and bold, with two people who look happy and are enjoying themselves to represent their feeling to school. Although the people in the picture are students, the image I used may be a problem because it was not taken in a school which may be something I could improve next time when creating such task like this one.


2. To carry on this joyful feeling, I also used bright, colourful writing to stand out and look attractive to a young audience. The same colours are repeated used to create a colour co-ordinated scheme so it is all matching and everything fits in together. The fonts are bubbly, bold, clear and easy to read so the audience will not have difficulty trying to read this text. The title is written in a sort of graffiti style to appeal to a younger audience as they would be interested in them styles of writing and feel it is for them. Moreover, the actual text used in the front cover I chose carefully to make it seem fun but also educational so it would make learning and school seem enjoyable. For example: " Win 50 pounds for best poem " as writing poems may not seem very fun for some students however, if you involve a cash prize it would then appeal to them and motivate them to do something educational. For my case making them want to read the magazine in order to find out how to win the prize.


3. The layout I chose for my front cover is very simple but effective. I only used one main strong image and done my writing around it. This was so my one image could be the main attraction, then went the audience were engaged would also read around it cover. As by having too many images on one cover could confuse or baffle the audience. Also by looking at my research of other magazines i found that most of them only used one main image also with writing around it so I thought it would be the most effective style. Furthermore, from other magazine I realised that some use a bar at the top of the page to write something, so by taking that idea i too created a coloured bar at the top with something to appeal to the audience as it may be useful for them and help them out.


4. All of the things done above were done to attract my target audience, which were school students from year 7 to sixth form.

I added in a free poster of the school, to make it look more interesting and also like the audience are getting something for free which they would like so would want to get the magazine.

Also the bar code I used was chosen specifically, not to glamorise prison in anyway but to show the students that with this magazine they can be free and escape from school pressures and just see the brighter more fun side to school.

Moreover, by making the magazine free it would definitely appeal to much more people giving my magazine a larger population of readers and wider audience.

The magazine is aimed at young teenagers who are currently in education . This is why my main image is of two teenagers, who represent teenagers as happy, cheerful and always having fun. To add to this approach the colours of the magazine are very bright, bold an attractive to a younger audience. Also the fact that the information is based on school and school issues it emthepsises that it is a magazine for students. Therefore, the school institution would distribute the school magazine. Moreover, the students in the image are not English therefore represent other multi cultural backgrounds to appeal to a wider population of teenagers.

From doing the preliminary task I learnt allot more about different types of technology. Firstly I learnt how to use photoshop including adding effects, improving a picture, adding pictures, choosing best text, editing certain parts of an image etc.

Secondly, I learnt about blogger.com and how to create a blog, publish posts, layouts and all information need to know how to use blogger.

Finally, I learnt how you could improve your photoshop designs by looking following step by step tutorials on the Internet to give certain effects and different styles to your design.

Overall, I do like my final design and am pleased with what I have produced. I believe it will be appealing and attract to many teenagers. Personally if I saw this magazine in school I would pick it up read it.

Although I did want to make the colours green and blue to represent the Fortismere Colours however, then it would not have been as bright and colourful. If I was to do another task like this next time I would keep that in mind.