Tuesday, 25 February 2014

School Magazine Evaluation

Throughout the process of creating my magazine, there are a number of areas which I think I could have improved, made adjustments to and made look more realistic to what most professional magazines look like.

Some of the areas I could improve on are features such as the masthead. I chose to use a fairly simple thin text that does not particularly attract the most attention whereas a lot of professional magazines use a thick bold font to make the title stand out to the reader encouraging them to buy the magazine. I have used the puff ‘exclusive interviews with the students’ on the cover of my magazine to boost its status and attract the audience.

The quality of my feature article photograph could definitely be improved as the quality of the photo is not very good and is slightly blurred in some areas. The photographs used in professional magazines are usually a lot better quality, appeal to the target audience and usually give an overall impression to the reader of what type of article is going to be in that issue of the magazine, for example its genre could be rock, pop or classic. I could also have edited the photograph to make the colours bolder and more contrasting as it has a dull tone to it and doesn’t stand out as much as it should if it were a professional magazine.

Most music magazines tend to stick to the colour scheme of red, black and white in terms of the text, whereas I have mainly stuck with various shades of blue, black and white. The shades of blue I choose mix well with the background image I have used as they are similar colours as the top worn by the student in the photo but do not contrast with it therefore the plugs do not stand out very well. The darker colours that have darker outlines to do not attract attention as well as a plain black or white bold font would do on a coloured background.

In my magazine the demographics represent a smart happy student that is aimed at any aged student who is interested in learning more about the school. It is aimed at both genders and gives the impression that as the student in the photograph shows a smart appearance and happy facial expression it’s suggesting that this could be you if you show take an interest in the magazine and school. I have used a plain brick wall for the background whereas a lot of magazines would use a certain background to provide a meaning or give an impression to the reader about the article. It does not particularly have a certain social group but focuses more on appealing to students instead of a certain class.

I have also used various different features to attract the audience to the magazine such as the feature article photograph. The photograph I have used may appeal to the target audience as it is aimed at students who are looking for information in the school therefore appeals to these students due to the student on the front creating a good impression.  I have also used bold outlines around the text to make the plugs stand out, although as an improvement I could have stuck to a stricter colour scheme as I think this would have created more of an impression and could have looked a lot more professional. I also think that I could improve on my photoshop skills as there were a few areas that could have been better. For example on my contents page I could have taken more time to carefully cut around the image more accurately as it has not been done very well and you can still see parts of the image that should have been cut out. Another improvement I could have made would be to use a more interesting font as the font I used throughout the cover and contents page was very plain and didn’t stand out very much.



Through the process of constructing my magazine I have learnt using technologies how to use certain aspects of photoshop for example how to put filters on text and how to import images from files into photoshop. Also I learnt how to put a box around the text and change its opacity to create a background for the text without the image being completed covered up.

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