Evaluation of the Preliminary Exercise

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a school magazine?

My media product uses the uses the typical visual hierarchy of a magazine, allowing the readers eyes move across the page in a ‘Z’ shape (from the masthead, across the main features and headings, and finally to the banner at the bottom of the page). This enables the reader to thoroughly develop an understanding of what the magazine is about and what it contains.
On the other hand, my school magazine uses the colours used in the Biddulph High School house-style and logo (blue and white). This therefore allows the audience to recognise what and who the magazine represents, furthered by the use of a medium close up of a student, a convention of  school magazine. The headings and subheadings are placed around the cover star, allowing them to become the main focus of the magazine. In addition to this, the image overlaps the masthead showing a sense of importance, influencing the whole magazine which is supported by the main headline. Additionally, the cover uses basic, yet obvious features of a magazine such as a barcode, issue number and date, important for sales etc.

The fonts used on the masthead and headings, on the cover, are serif fonts giving a formal and sophisticated look of the school, in contrast to the sans serif, informal font used on the contents page. This therefor could represent the school on a whole – whilst appearing formal and respectable on the cover, once inside, it is more comfortable and informal, influencing the progress and performance of the students.

The use of different sizes and fonts of the headings and subheadings on the cover, allows the reader to pick out the most important articles and those of interest, supported by the use of relevant images. Similar to the front cover, the contents page develops the conventions of a magazine further, with the use of different effects on page numbers and headings, i.e. bold, italic and the use of a drop shadow. Since the purpose of a contents page is for a reader to navigate through the magazine with ease, my contents page is simple in order to do so. On the other hand, the use of pictures down the left-hand side of the contents page, frames the page yet also gives the audience an insight of student life.

My magazine also challenges the conventions of a magazine by using headings and subheadings, on the cover, to attract the attention of the audience, with headlines emphasising the achievements of the school. On the other hand, language such as ‘exclusive’ and ‘behind the scenes’ informs the audience of important information and allows them to explore and discover student life. In addition, language such as ‘record breaking results’ emphasises, and advertises, the success of the school, gaining a good reputation which also links in with the schools ethos 'Aim For The Highest' focusing on student GCSE and A-Level results.

How effective is the front page of your magazine in focusing on the ethos of the school?

The main message the Biddulph high school communicates is ‘aim for the highest’, which is demonstrated in the headline ‘a new high’ and ‘record breaking results’ emphasising student talent and success. On a whole, this gives the school, a reliable and respectable reputation due to such abilities and progress. On the other hand, Biddulph high school represents ‘respect, dignity and pride’ demonstrated in the main image of the magazine cover. The cover star is seen laughing suggesting confidence, happiness and pride towards student life and reaching their full potential. 

What have you learned from your audience’s feedback?

One of the main strengths of the magazine was that it accounts for the majority of school life i.e. charity week, university, music etc. therefore allowing the product to have a wider target audience. In addition to this, the magazine features the house style of the school therefore not biased towards age or gender. On the other hand, it was said that the magazine cover was easy and interesting to read due to the use of colour and simple fonts, whilst the contents page was clear and simple, therefore fit for purpose. However it can be argued that the contents page was too simple, in contrast to the front cover, as it looks ‘empty’. Arguably, the use of images ultimately gives the school a positive, respectable image again fit for purpose as it focuses on the success and talent of its pupils. The main weakness was that a range of different fonts could have been used on the contents page as it again looks too simple, and contrasts the cover.

How did you use the new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

For the creation of my magazine cover and contents page, I used Adobe Fireworks which allowed me to create and experiment with different compositions and layouts for my final products. For my front cover, I explored different layering techniques, using different arrangements for the masthead, headlines and images whilst also using different layers in order for my cover to look interesting and busy, yet not over the top. I also used different transparency adjustments in order to blend different shapes so that they didn’t distract from the main focus, i.e. the banner against the main text, and the image of the piano keys so that it wasn’t too bold against the cover star. I cut around the cover star and placed her on top of piano keys in order to piece the two pictures, and ideas, together therefore supporting the main headline.  I learned that the construction of a magazine has to be neat in order for it to look professional; therefore, I used a blending tool to erase all sharp edges on the images.

In order for my masthead to stand out against the rest of the cover, used different sizes and experimented with different effects so that it wasn’t too flat against the rest of the magazine. By using a drop shadow, I was able to add depth to the cover and emphasise the different layers. A similar approach was used for my contents page, for the heading and page numbers in order to emphasise certain bits of text, allowing the reader to navigate easily through the product.