Evaluation of School Magazine

I believe that my school magazine does not challenge other media products as it follows the same structure as other magazine media products because it follows the Left Third rule and uses big bold texts  on the cover page etc. As the school magazine follows the same rules I can only come to the conclusion that my school magazine does not challenge other media products.

My media product does mainly represents the academic social group or the "nerds" of the school as that is who my target audience is aimed at as the media product mainly informs the reader of academic events happening at Idsall. However, it does target the adventurous social group of Idsall as it informs the reader of the Peru expedition which is sporty not academic.

This media product mainly addresses the older academic students in the school by only reporting about academic events and stories mostly because other events such as sport competitions might not appeal to the stereotypical academic student. By writing about academic topics and events, it attracted the target audience that I desired so by writing academic stories, it attracted the academic students.

From this media product, I have learnt many technological techniques such as lighting effects, background editing and gradients. Lighting effect techniques helped me greatly as the images I took sometimes are quite dark and I would have to retake the image myself which only creates hassle for me. The lighting effects helped me greatly as I was able to lighten my media product instead of retaking it. The background editing helped a lot as well as instead of editing certain objects out of the background, I could simply edit out the background entirely which clearly helped me remove undesired objects from my main image.  The gradient tool helped me design my media product as it created the sliver banner and faded quality of the media quality which showed me that faded textures could be used in future media products.

The main thing I would do differently would be to add more natural images and colours on the pages as the black background created a very plain school magazine that doesn't really entertain the reader which is against one of my initial aims. As well, looking back I would definitely change the colour scheme I followed for the media product as it limited my creative options and thus limited the quality of the entire media product.

Finished School Maagzine Double Page Spread

Below is my finished double page spread which is by far my best production out of all the three pages that I've had to create. This is because the use of the images and the text blend well together I believe this entertains the target audience more than any other page. The images and text were placed and created by using Adobe Photoshop again which is very simple techniques but in the end the final product is impressive to my eyes. To improve for next time I again would use more colour on the double page spread as for all my three pages it lacks colour which does not entertain the target audience.

Finished School Magazine Contents Page

The final contents page was created exactly the same way as the front cover, by Adobe Photoshop, and I used very simple tools this time as I just placed an image of Idsall on the top of the page and used a simple border selection to create the orange border. The text was clearly used by the text tool as always. To improve I would again add more colour or images to make the contents page far more interesting to my target audience.

Finished School Magazine Front Cover



This is my final front cover that I produced by using Adobe Photoshop CC because it required certain tools only Photoshop possesses to create this front cover. I created the top silver banner with the title "Idsall Scholar" and by using the layers feature, I sent the main image a head of the title so it overlaps. The text was simply created with the text tool. From this experience I learnt that a more natural photo or a full photo with no edited background is the best type of photo to go for as it creates a more natural front cover in the end and doesn't alienate the target audience.

School Magazine Schedule

This is my schedule that I will follow over the duration of the production of my school magazine that has a set deadline for each task and a column next to it that gives details when the task was completed.

http://www.slideshare.net/bdr628/schedule-44552745

School Magazine Edited Images

Once I had taken my photos for my school magazine I needed to choose the photo I would use for my front cover which I did and then edited the image by using Adobe Photoshop CS6 to adapt the lighting and other such elements to suit my needs.

This is the photo that I decided to Photoshop by adding a gradient with transparency to add a black bar on the top of the image and a lighting effect was added to create more emphasise on the main image and make the side stories stand out more.

Feedback on School Magazine Mock Ups

For my mock ups/designs for my school magazine I showed them to my target audience of older students aged around 15-18 to get their feedback on all my designs.

For my front cover mock ups the feedback was that the first design was the best design to use because it seems more like a magazine rather than a school magazine which is good because it engages the reader more. The front cover basically conveys a message that the magazine is entertaining and interesting to read because of the layout (Left Third Rule) as it follows the general layout a normal magazine would. This feedback strengthens my decision to choose the first design as my front cover layout because of the positive feedback I have received.

For my contents page designs, the second design was chosen by most because of the professional look it gave and how it could give information about the contents clearly and effectively. If this design is seen as a clearer way to present information then maybe this design should be considered to be the one that will be used as the layout for the contents page.

For the double page spread design, the final design was chosen as the most favourable because of the unusual layout the page, it appears to be a new and likable design that the feedback clearly thinks is a layout to use. The final design might be used because of the reaction it got so it would e stupid to ignore feedback from a sample of my target audience.

It is worth noting that the feedback is only a sample from a large group so these layouts might not be favourable among the entire target audience.