Front cover text

As said before i produced three seperate front covers to see which one would be favoured. Shown below;

Front Cover Choice

In order to ensure that the choice of mine, to present the magazine front cover in such a way and the contents page would also be favoured by people of the target audience, i produced a Questionnaire, as shown below, which was handed to 100 students at my school. When this was answered, the results were taken into consideration.

Magazine Questionnaire
(6th form)

(tick accordingly)
1) Do you read magazines often?

Yes No

2) Which would you prefer?
A magazine front cover..

With colour, in moderation
With lots of colour
In black and white

3) Which would you prefer?

Many pictures
One picture
3 or less pictures

4) Which event interests you more?

Christmas
Prom 2009

5) Would you be interested in a horoscope page?

Yes
No

6) Are you interested in the current fashion?

Yes
No

7) For any text written, would you rather it be

Formal
Informal

The overall decision in relation to the questionnaire results that; for those who do read magazines they would prefer to read one which has colour in moderation, with 3 or less pictures, containing information about the prom 2009, also including a horoscope page and updates of the current fahion. Any text provided would be informal. Therefore i am going to produce a magazine front cover and contents page which meets this objective. In order to do so i am going to alter the chosen cover picture to black and white. But put any main text in colour.

A
B
Once looking at the possible images above, A and B, i have chosen to use option B for he front cover, however i am no longer going to place another picture of someone reading a Prom invitation as i think it may make the cover more busy than it should be. I believe this is the best option as the image shows more of the school and is overall a better image than option A. To see whether the image will fit accordingly with either black/white/coloured text i am going to produce three different covers to see which one would be more suited.

Changes to layout and pictures

After looking at the layout in which i decided to base the magazine cover within, i thought it would be best to keep it even more simple than the way previously suggested. This is because the magazine that captured my attention was based even more plainly.

In order to achieve a front cover just like this, i plan to have the picture which fills the whole page, of a girl reading the Prom '09 invitation, infront of the school gates. The picture must show part of the school bulidings behind her.

Just as on this XXL magazine i am also going to attempt to display the masthead, behind the girl. To do this i presume that i will have to take a picture of the school, and then a seperate picture of the person reading the invite and then put the masthead and a cut out of the girl on top, accordingly.


The main feature has been displayed in bold text in the centre of the page, i am not yet sure whether i would like this to be text advertising the Prom or the festive season of Christmas. This i am going to decide at a later date.

I have taken numerous pictures to be used for the front cover, these were taken on a camera and transferred to the computer. I am going to make a decision as to which picture of the school will be presented on the cover of the magazine. The options are shown below;

Evidently, the majority or pictures were taken landscape, these do not particularly fit the criteria of a potrait magazine therefore if i were to choose one of those taken landscape, it will require me having to take the picture once again.

Possible Layout

After taking into account the different elements of a magazine which i would possibly use to create my own front cover, i am going to decide the layout which would suit the purpose of the magazine, ensuring that the presentation of it will atrract attention of potential customers.

I am going to ensure the layout will be of a simple nature , as a cover with too much text/pictures/titles etc may possibly loose the attention of readers. Firstly i have created a blank page, only with boxes and text to signify what is intended to be put there.As shown below;

Task outline and relevant research

The task in which i have been assigned for my AS level Media, is that i have to produce a school magazine front cover, followed by a relevant contents page. In this it must include a mid close up of a student, laid-out text and a masthead.

I am going to begin working on my prelim magazine by looking at the features in which i will have on the front page i am going to create. I believe that the main features should be:

• the sixth form ball, this will be the main feature of the front page




• new horoscope page, this should be a small, yet colourfully presented




• two or more pictures




• information about any events which will be taking place around christmas time, i aim to create this using christmas colours and maybe decoration, of things such as holly etc




• a title, this should be bold

To decide the way in which i will present these features i am going to look at examples of other christmas season magazines, different types of font and sizes for specific texts, pictures which may attract the attention of a potential buyer also pictures that will relate to the articles which will be within the magazine and the way in which magazines tend to be laid out.

Today i have mainly focused on the way in which writing on the front page will compliment the subject in which it is displaying and the page as a whole. For example, i have tried out many different font styles for the word "christmas", to find the one which is best suited, not just for the word but for the presenation of the page. To narrow down the search for the most appropriate one, i decided that the most fitted would be more of an old fashioned, italic style, so therefore i looked at these fonts.

This enabled me to choose one of the ten that i looked at. I decided to choose option d, this is because the writing appeared to be more "christmasy" than others and the writing was readable.

I then went on to look at different types of magazines and the way in which the are laid out. This enabled me to make some decisions as the way i may choose to lay out the front cover of the school magazine. Somewhat of a guide for myself to use, ensuring that i will not produce a clutered or dull front cover. I looked at an aray of magazines; school magazines, christmas magazines and general magazines, and analyised the features i liked from them.