Front Page

Thus far, I have completed most of my front page. I have slightly changed from the template layout that I created earlier in the blog, in order to suit the style that I wanted more.

Photo Plan

I must create my own image to place on the front page of my school magazine. The photograph must be my own, I cannot take it from the internet. The plan is to have a medium close up of my model, therefore from the waist to the head. My model will be someone in college, ideally in the study room or library, studying or conversing with other college students, to convey a working, focused and somewhat intellectual atmosphere.

Masthead Decision

I have decided to use this typography:

I have chosen this masthead because it is sophisticated, and sophistication and maturity are important because my magazine is aimed at college students. If I decided to distribute my magazine towards younger school students, then I would have chosen a crazier, wackier font.

Magazine Name Masthead

Since I have decided that my magazine name will be The Heath Times, I must now create a masthead, using typography skills I have learnt previously in the course. I will brainstorm different typography sets to establish which one is my favourite, and the one that will ultimately be used on the magazine front page.

Choice 1 :

This is the first masthead that I may use. The font is Franklin Gothic Medium Cond. The "Heath" is in blue because as I decided earlier in my house style blog entry that my colour scheme is blue and black.

Choice 2 :

This is the second masthead I may use. The font is Orator STD. This typography is different to the first one because this has a black background. The font colour is light blue. The black background has connotations of mystery and suspense, which conveys to the idea of a magazine, in which it is suspenseful about what is inside.

Choice 3 :

This is the final masthead option I have. The typography is different to the first two because this has a light blue background with black text. This is the colour scheme for my magazine, which I stated in my house style blog entry. The typography is powerful and bold, which conveys power and knowledge, traits which apply to my school magazine - because it will have the power to inform people on what is happening in the college, and be able to give them knowledge too.

School Magazine Name Decision

For my preliminary task, I am creating a college magazine, therefore in that case I must create a magazine name. It must be unique, not a name already in use, because I want my magazine to have it's own brand identity, and the name is a big factor within the overall identity of the brand I am trying to establish.

Hence, I have decided to name the magazine :

The Heath Times

 

I have chosen this name because "The Heath" is in regards to the surname of the college that this magazine will be distributed in, Rooks Heath. Having parts of the unique college name in the magazine name will entice the students to read it because they know it is aimed at them. It is also used because it creates an exclusive brand identity.

 

I chose "Times" because it is a commonly used and conventional newspaper / magazine name, which tells the consumers that this is a magazine. The phrase "Times" conveys someone documenting what is happening at the current time, and what is happening over time. This will be helpful in a school magazine as the purpose of it is to inform the audience what is happening in their area / environment, at that given time.

House Style : School Magazine

I have decided on a house style for my school / college magazine, for my preliminary task.

  - The font that I will be using is trebuchet, as it is a solid font type, and different from the usual font choices such as Calibri and Arial .

  - The colour scheme of my magazine will be black and blue. This is because the colour blue has connotations of depth and stability, two traits which a school magazine strives for, depth in content and articles. Blue also symbolizes other characteristics a school should have such as confidence, wisdom and intelligence. These colours should help to subconsciously motivate the college students to work harder at school due to these wise and aspiring connotations.

  - The mode of address for this college magazine will be friendly and supportive. The aim of the magazine is to connect with and inform the students, therefore I do not want the tone of it to be aggressive and demanding. This way, the students will be more likely to read the content and to react positively by discussing and providing constructive criticism on how to make the college better.

Contents Page Layout : Analysed

I have now completed the basic layout for my contents page on Adobe Photoshop CS6, because that is the program I am most comfortable with. In order to fully understand why I have placed features of the contents page in certain places, I have annotated the layout with analysis of each and every feature:

Front Cover Layout : Analysed

I have completed the layout mock up of my front page that will be used for my school magazine, as part of the preliminary task of this AS Media course. In order to understand and grasp why I used that certain layout, I have annotated and analysed each component featured on the front page:

Contents Page : Complete Layout

Here is the completed layout for the contents page in my school magazine, complete with history states and grid lines to show the process:

Finally, here is the completed layout without grid lines, to clearly show exactly where different aspects of the magazine will go:

Contents page mock up : So far

In order to create the layout of my contents page for my college magazine, I took influence from this existing contents page in a college magazine :

So far, I have inserted grid lines in order to get the dimensions correct. Here is what it looks like so far:

 

Mock Up : Updated

I have now completed the layout for my front page, this is what it looks like with the grid lines, history and layers present:

 

Here is what my layout looks like without grid lines and history states:

School Magazine : Mock Up Process

I am currently in the process of creating the basic layout of my school college magazine for my preliminary task. I am basing the layout off of this existing school magazine, which is the same example that I analysed earlier in the blog.

 

I am using Adobe Photoshop CS6 to create it, and so far I have place in the grid lines to set out where the masthead will go :

School Magazines Survey Analysis

I have received 16 respondents' answers on my survey since I published it on the 31st Oct, 4 days ago. I will now analyse my findings and adapt the data into my own work, and how this somewhat focus group can aid me in my own school magazine construction.

Evidently here, the most popular hobby spent in these college students' free time is social media, with 6 responses and 35% of the overall tally.

This means that it would be beneficial to include some sort of social media link or aspect in my school magazine, in order to get the attention of the readers.

It is obvious here that the overwhelming favourite for whether or not college students are going to University is "Yes", with 12/16 votes, and 75% of the poll.

Therefore, in my own school magazine, I will attempt to include aspects of university life.This can be content such as information about different universities, and help with personal statements for university.

The following question was what college students enjoyed reading in a school magazine, because that would give me guidance on what content to include that would tailor to their liking.

The most popular choices were upcoming events and trips, therefore I will include these aspects in my magazine. I will feature trips that the college is expecting, and upcoming events that will be of interest to the college students e.g. fund raisers and charity events.

Here it shows that the most majority favourite thing about sixth form from students is the independence and freedom that comes with being in college. 

Because of this, I will use my magazine to highlight certain aspects of independence in college, possibly I could include tips on how to study on ones own, and similar independence related pieces of advice and tips.

It is evident in the answers to this question that the most common aspect of sixth form that students dislike is the amount of work that they have to complete, now that they are in college and are doing A Levels, BTECs etc.

Therefore in my school magazine I will include ways to make the workload seem lighter, and to reduce the students' stress. I will give advice on how to manage time properly and efficiently so that the students can get all their work done and not have to worry as much.

The next question was what the college students wanted to be when they grew up / what they wanted to be when they finished education. The answers were mainly white collar, stereotypically well-paid jobs such as accountant, stock broker and economist etc.

Because of these results, I will continue to add information into my magazine about universities and career paths, to help them stay on track towards their respective goals.

My penultimate question to the college students was what gender they identified as. The results of this would ultimately help me to identify and understand my target audience, those who are reading my college magazine.

Obviously I cannot tailor the design and content towards females, just because that was the most popular gender of my target audience. However, the results were close, as there were 5 boys and 6 girls, therefore its a relatively even split. Therefore my magazine will be unisex, it will apply and be available to all genders.

My final question was what extra curricular activities college students take part in. The data from this question would help me to further understand my target audience's characteristics and personalities.

The most popular choice was that they don't take part in any extra curricular activities. Therefore in my magazine I will highlight what goes on in the sports extra curricular activities, as this option was second most popular, with 3 responses. Hopefully this will entice the majority of 8 respondents who denied taking part in activities, to go and take part. It would also be beneficial to include information about other extra curricular activities, as that would further entice the college students to get involved with the scheme.


In conclusion, the replies to my survey have helped me to grasp a better understanding of my target audience, which well help when constructing a school magazine, aimed at college students.

Final Piece Analysis

This is my finished piece on recreating the "Garage" magazine front cover.

This is the original front cover. I chose this example because it seemed not too challenging for my first attempt at using InDesign, but still a challenge nonetheless.











 This is my finished recreation. The whole process took
approximately 3 hours, spread out over 3 different lessons. I believe for my first attempt at using this program, I copied it rather closely. However, there are some elements that show it is not an exact replica.

The most obvious is the difference in size and colour in the masthead. The original was a pale kind of yellow whereas mine is slightly stronger and bolder. The letters are too wide, compared to the original. I could not find the exact font used in the original, therefore this is not as good as it could be.

The image itself is not the original, therefore this version is more pixelated and lower quality.

Other than that, the two are seemingly similar, and I believe this was a decent first attempt at making a magazine front cover on InDesign.

 

Magazine Recreation : Project Evaluation

I have now completed my recreation of the "Garage" front cover. I found the process difficult at first because I am used to editing and designing magazine pages on Microsoft Publisher and Adobe Photoshop CS6.


However, as I continued with this project, I grasped a better understanding of how InDesign works, and how to create magazine pages on there. I used youtube videos such as :

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9vGs9PqSq8&safe=active

, which is a tutorial on how to create and design magazine pages on InDesign. This trilogy of videos helped me to improve my novice skills on this editing program.

Overall, I have now learnt how to use this program, and I found the process tiresome at times but ultimately, interesting. This introductory task will undoubtedly help me to create magazine pages during the main task of this AS course.

 

InDesign project Updated

Since my last entry regarding my project to recreate a "Garage" magazine front cover, I have inserted the image of the model using the Place tool. To put the image behind the masthead text, I used Ctrl + Shift + [ key .