Preliminary Task- Research and Planning, Construction and Evaluation

Media Magazine Front Page One from _hayley_

Media Magazine Front Page Two from _hayley_

Media Magazine Front Page Three from _hayley_

Media Magazine Front Page Four from _hayley_

Contents Page 1 from _hayley_

Contents Page 2 from _hayley_

Four Graphs, showing Primary Research (Qualtive Data) from _hayley_

From my Research, its clear that the students wouldn't be the main people that will be reading my magazines it will be the parents. So when it comes to making and creating my magazine it will be better suited for my main target audience that is the parents. But the students said they would read the magazine if they had more input in the magazine or the stories were suited for them, therefore I have added stories about school gossip and sports team because this is appeal to the parents as well as the student.

Planning- Mock up of Layout from _hayley_





This is my new Magazine Layout, I decided to add an pug because I thought that this would be more appealing for the readers, so that when they read about the competition that is on the front cover is won’t just be in a box it will be in a circle which will be more appealing I’ve made the circle just plain blue because I think that his would be just a simple but effective so that the white text inside of the circle will be seen but also it fits with my theme of red, white and blue. I’ve also changed the colour scheme slightly to a light blue and dark blue because I think that this will appeal to the readers, it had lots of different colours for the stories because it will show of different types of stories. I’ve also kept some in black because it will make the different type of stories standout more because there will be different colours for a specific type of story. I’ve also changed my font because I looked back at my Primary Research and it is clear that the main target audience for my magazine would be the parents and they wouldn’t want to see a ‘childlike’ handwriting for the front font because that will show that there isn’t a very professional look about the school and it would be better to use standard font and a font that looked very structured so that it will make the magazine look more sophisticated.

Evaluation

1.     In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media?

My magazine has followed the normal codes and conventions of a real school media magazine but having key details that stand out e.g. having a masthead therefore showing off the magazines main title making it standout showing off to the readers that it is a school magazine. Also another key feature would be the main image, for my main image I used an image of boy because most of the magazines that I looked at in my preliminary research were mostly girls, so I thought that I would use a boy therefore challenging the other magazines.  But also my magazine would challenge the forms and conventions of real media due to the fact that it doesn’t look like an professional magazine, it isn’t as clean cut and the layout could have been better, doing the layout so it wasn’t all in the right hand third.

2.     How does your magazine represent social groups?

My magazine presents the main social group to be parents because this is my target audience for who the magazine is aimed for. The information inside the magazine will be aimed towards them alongside school sporting achievements as well as some information about afterschool clubs e.g. band club that would be targeted at the students that might read the school magazine if they were interested.

3.     What kind of media institutions (publisher) might distribute your media product and why?

MA Education publishes magazines, books and resources for teachers involved in early years, primary and secondary education. The company of MA Education will help publish my school magazine because that is something that they will specialize in and they will make sure that my magazine will touch my target audience and then therefore will make good sales and become very popular. They also make the magazine available online to buy so that when parents look around for schools they will see all the different schools and which magazines they can buy. They will want to distribute my media product because it is fits with all other media products that, company will distribute so it is very similar.

4.     Who would be the audience for your media product?

For my magazine the main target audience would be the parents because I would want them to read the magazine and to find out information that wouldn’t know e.g. sporting achievements along with schooling achievements. So they will be looking at new and exciting information about the school their child will be attend but even if their child doesn’t it help them see what the school has achieved. The secondary audience for my magazine would be the students mainly the children would have helped to design part of the magazine, they would read the magazine but they will be putting information in the magazine that they would want to read. But mostly targeted at the parents because the magazine would be showing off the schools achievements.

5.     How did you attract/address your audience?

For my magazine I wanted to attract the audiences by using colours e.g. reds, blues, whites and black. Because all those colours complement each other but also they will standout to the readers because I didn’t want to have one plain colour for the whole of the front magazine because I wanted to show off that different colours would be highlighting different stories. Another thing was I made the main image have a very bright contrast and background, so that therefore the writing would really standout because it will be behind a very pale background. Also the title for my magazine was at the very top in the right hand side of the side which is normally where most magazine titles would be so that when the reader would pick up the magazine they would automatically look there and then the title of my magazine would standout but also my strapline ‘school achieves outstand in Ofsted’. If a parent would read that then, they would know that the school is highly recommended and they would know this without even opening the magazine.

6.     What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

That using certain programmes and software’s such as Photoshop and InDesign that they are very difficult, when it comes to placing the images in the correct places that you would want them to go. So when it came to construction it was very difficult if you wanted your image to be in line with your text, I found that very difficult to place them in the same order of my mock up plan. When it came to copying my mock up, I did change a view things depending on how well it looked when it came to the images not looking right the text and making all the images fit on the page. Also looking back on my magazine I can see that, I have made everything fit in the right hand third, which when it comes to my main task I won’t do because that isn’t the using the

7.     What have you learnt in the prelim task which will help you to progress during the main task?

I think from the prelim the main thing that I have learnt through the main process is how to manage time and getting the research done very early before starting the construct because otherwise I found it was very hard to try and start my construct because I won’t know what my target audience will want to see on my front cover and then will therefore effect the way my magazine looks because my target audience won’t like the way it looks. That also it would be good to use a very simple layout when it comes to making the magazine and then build on top of that so that basic structure is very good and then the extra detail will help make the magazine standout.

8.     In reference to your mag, include images you have used before they have been manipulated or cropped and explain why you have used them on your front cover contents and DPS with a brief annotations

This was one of the images that I used for my magazine because I liked the way that my model looked because I think that is was one of the best. I did crop the image before so I cropped out his hands so that it was just his torso in the image so that, when then the text and the images would go on top so that it wouldn’t look strange when the image would be needed to go on top of the main image. I used this image for my front cover over the other images because I think if the readers would pick up a magazine that wouldn’t have a friendly face on the front cover it wouldn’t look as effective. So I used the picture of him smiling so that when the readers would pick up the magazine they will think that the school has a very friendly face and would want to buy and read the magazine.

The other images I have used are pictures of students in the music classroom and this is showing off what they would do if they were in band club, I also have a picture of a student that is wearing the school tie, this is giving the readers a sneak preview of what the uniform would look like for the children, I didn’t re use or change these images because I thought that they were good and it didn’t need to edited very much, only like a crop. But by using these type of images it is showing off the different areas of the school, showing that the school has a very wide range of products. But also I have used a range of different models and haven’t just kept the same people throughout the whole magazine so it is showing off the different students in school showing off the variety of students.