Evaluation

I am happy with the outcome of my school magazine front cover and contents page. I think I made it look professional by my continuous use of the same colours and the layout i chose. On the other hand, I think my contents page is a lot stronger than my front cover, but I think this is due to the fact  that my skills on photo shop had developed more after creating my front cover. 

I asked my parents and my friends parents as they were my target audience what they thought about my magazine and I had good feedback. One person told me 'I would expect to see this quality in a real school magazine' and another person told me 'It looks very professional' I found it was important for me to ask my target auidence what they thought about my magazine so i could learn what to improve when making my music magazine. 

These are my final outcomes:

Photo shoot

I completed my photo shoot and I am impressed with how my photos came out. These are my outcomes:

 

 

This is a photo of the new building of the LRC which stands for the 'Learning resource centre' I have included this photo because its new to the school this year and reflects my theme of 'Back to School'  as my target audience associate 'new' with my theme. I took this on a straight on angle so the front of the building fit perfectly in the picture of that it looks symmetrical. I then edited this photo by cropping the building into the frame so that it was symmetrical and there were no shadows from the models i used.

 

This is a photo of a student logging on to the school VLE in the sixth form study room. I took this photo as an over the shoulder shot to show a student at work so that the readers can see that the students in our school are motivated to do their work. I also cropped and zoomed this imaged. I cropped and zoomed into this image so that the main focus is on the computer monitor and the student and not her surroundings.

 

 

 

 

Theme/Masthead/Sketch

Theme

My chosen theme is 'Back to School' I chose the theme because it was the most popular theme my target audience chose from my questionnaire. The words that were most popular for 'what do you associate with Back to School were 'New' and 'Fresh' Due to this, I am going to include the new LRC and what it will be used for. I will also include the room changes that have been made due to the new library. I am also going to include information about the new external students who have joined Beaverwood sixth form. This will include how they find Beaverwood and what they enjoy about being at our sixth form.

Masthead

The title I am going to use for my school magazine is 'Beaverwood News' This was the favourite masthead my target audience chose from the questionnaire. This instantly tells the target audience what to expect in this magazine. When creating my masthead I will experiment with different fonts on photo shop and www.dafonts.com which is a website which has a variety of fonts.

Sketch

I have made sketches of how I want my magazine to be layed out so when it comes to making it I no where everything needs to go for each page starting with the front cover:

I found it better that I had come up with plans on how I wanted my front cover and contents page to look becuase it saved me time on photo shop and I know not to forget anything when it comes to creating them.

Photo planning

Pictures within the magazine

When taking my photos I am going to have to take very aspect into consideration such as the angles, lighting and the contents. After doing a lot of research into different magazines, I have decided that my front cover is going to be a location shot of the new LRC building. I am going to take this with a straight on angle to get the whole of the building in the shoot.

Other images I want to have in my magazine is sixth formers working in the study areas within the sixth form block so show how the students at Beaverwood work hard. I want to take a picture of a pupil from an over the shoulder shot with them doing work on the computer. I want to take a picture of a group of friends socialising in the common room to show that sixth form is also a social area where you can meet new people. I am going to take this photo as an high angle shot to show the whole group.

On the contents page I want to show an image of either the front of the school (Main block) or the beaverwood badge which is on the lower schools uniform. I want this image to portray the school in a good way so that the parents are proud of the school their children go to.

Facial expressions

When including students in my magazine, I want them to be portrayed as enjoying sixth form so I will ask them to smile while I take my photos. When I take the group photo in the common room I want them to be sat in a circle, looking at each other talking and smiling. This will portray the social environment the common room provides for the students. If the students are enjoying their time at school, their parents/guardians will be pleased with their schooling. When I take the photo of an over the shoulder shot of a student doing work, I want it too look they are concentrating to show the reader that the students here are proud of their work ethics.

Lighting

When taking photos outside, it is going to be hard to control the light depending of the weather, so for my outside images if they dont come out as i predict, I will edit them on photoshop to create the effect I want. On the other hand, the photos I take inside will be more controlled and I will be able to postition the camera and lighting together to create the correct effect. If not, I will download the photo to photoshop and adjust the brightness and contrast of the images.

Contents page research

To be able to create a contents page, I had to do some research into existing contents page's and conventions to find out how to lay them out professionally and what to include to make it successful.

This magazine contents page has all the original conventions of a contents page such as headings, page numbers and pictures. Many contents pages will have to sections of articles 'Special features' and regular features' The difference is the special articles are only used in that issue of the magazine, however regular features are in that magazine for every issue.

Questionnaire and results

To have an idea of what my target audience would like to see within a school magazine, I created a questionnaire for them too have an input to the magazine. I then collected the results and created a bar chart to show what I have chosen to do.

I have decided that the cost of my school will cost £1 and will be named Beaverwood News. The theme of my magazine will be on back to school as that it was my target audience what to read about. Articles I will include will be term dates, events and results. My magazine will offer the readers freebies with there magazine such as pens, note pads and more stationary. I found out that a lot of my readers associate the words 'new' and 'fresh' with back to school. Therefor i will include what is new to beaverwood and the fresh ideas we have to have a fun and academic term.

I found that handing out a questionnaire to my target audience allowed me to find out more about what they like to see within a school magazine so that mine will appeal to them more. Including all the points that the liked the most, will allow me to create a successful school magazine.

Audience Theory

Every media form has a target audience which is a group of people seen as the people who should watch/read the media form. In a text there is certain features which apply for just that target audience which is why its important for the correct content to be in for the implied target audience.

You also have to consider the appearance of the media form so that it relates for the target audience. For example, if the intended audience is for children, you would use bright colours and a lot of images. However, if the target audience are parents for a school magazine, it will have to be presented clearly and professionally.

This also includes social class depending on what sort of school the magazine is intended for. Whether it is a grammar school or a comprehensive school. Social class is divided into the following groups:



1: Higher managerial and professional
2: Middle Management
3: Office workers
4: Skilled manual workers
5: Unskilled workers
6: unemployed, unwaged









stereotypes are often used when identifying a target audience and a common example is gender. The difference between men and women with media forms can be determined by colour, life style and sometimes interests. For example, colours associated with women are pink, purples and red whereas colours associated with men would be blues and green.




Within the colour wheel there are colours which are neutral to men and women such as yellow, oranges, black and white. These colours are used when a media form has a wide target audience of both genders. An example of this would be a simple advertisement such as Heinz beans. Advertisements for new cars would be aimed at men on the other hand an advertisement for boots would be for women.

Although target audiences are applied, doesn't mean they are always followed. For example, I think my target audience for my school magazine will be more women because its a stereotype that mothers are more at home and will have the time to read a magazine. However this is not always the case as sometimes there are stay at home dads which will be in charge of finding out about there child's schooling.

To create a successful school magazine I will need to take this theory into considerations so that I complete my magazine to the correct standard for my target audience so that it looks as professional as possible.