Thursday 12 May 2016

School Magazine Contents page


Contents page

Research
For my research I look at current school magazines, as they are magazines with experience in knowing what is needed to arouse the target audience and in the aesthetics capacity.

I first looked at a few examples of contents pages from school magazines.
Analysis of school magazines contents page.
- First thing I noticed is that the page has a white background and small pictures, because it is cheaper to print, I would assume it is not a big enough market to sell to make a profit as fashion and music magazines, which can spend much money to compete with competitors by producing magazines with thick covers, photo shoot quality and design.
- The display is organised and simple to complement with its serious theme.
-They both introduce ambitions content to inspire students, 'Never too young to learn about careers' and 'You may say I'm a dreamer'.
-These magazines are made to be sold, this does means there is more effort put in to it, but also that the magazine would not refer to specific points of a school, as it is for students and parents from many different schools. My magazine will be filled with information from the schools point of view and personal thoughts to create a relation with the parents. And give opportunity for them to give feedback and opinions to the points made in the magazine.

To be able to make a magazine where my target audience, I asked them for their opinion on what they would like to see in a school magazine made for parents.



Initial ideas from research:

Future

- Schools plans of constructions.
-New education material for students in bottom set, to get a A.
-Preparing year 13 for an independent life in university.
-GCSE students will be visited with a specialist for their career choices.
- Photography will be a new subject to our school.

Inspire your children

- The key to success.
-Is organisation all you need?
-Idol of the week- Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
-School trips for art, history and languages
students to learn a new culture and get exited for the future.
-Article on awarding from achievements, is it blackmailing?
is this the best way to achieve all targets?
- Is hobby the best way to release stress from school?

School discussions

-Will hire a counsellor solve all behaviour issues?
-New solar panels has been claimed.
-Should Latin be a mandatory subject.
-Is the uniform a way to change the schools pupils behaviour?
- Should the school pay for resources via electronic devices
for independent studying or daily homework?

To show the content of the contents page I will include a few pictures, as it is one of the  features used in the content page by the selling school magazines.

From these I selected these picture to go along with the chosen headlines.
Preparing year 13 for an independent life in university.
-Can they cook and with in a small budget?

Is hobby the best way to release stress from school?
-How exercising effect your final grades.


- Photography will be a new subject to our school.
Why should our students be willing to entry to this course? 

Should the school pay for resources via electronic devices
for independent studying or daily homework?
- The opinion of teachers of students using electronic devices.

Now I create a draft of the final product, by gathering all the information together.

The background is light red as it would be cheaper to print and does not affect reading the text.
As you can see I made A welcome message from the principle, so all parents feel welcomed by the school and enjoy the experience of being aware of  their children's environment.
After asking my target audience for feedback in conclusion I will have to change how it is displayed.

Here you can see that I used red on the font, this was done to bring the schools colours to create a synergy between both pages. The font style I kept the same as it looks serious and simple. 
Instead of the title being 'Contents page' it is now 'In this issue...' , because I thought it was a big coincidence both magazine had this title. I also saw that in the magazine with more pictures the page number are very big and bold, I tried to apply that to my page. As people are used to this I will be easier for them to find information.



Evaluation

To succeed of having the content my target audience (parents)would expect to see in a school magazine to parents, I asked for their and then included headlines which would suggest all the answers to their questions. I was also able to gather feedback through out the development, to have a final piece to their preference. I tried to frequently refer to my main initial points on how the final product should look like-
- Mature
- Eloquent
- Serious
- Formal
I believe I believe I succeeded this as all features hit the priorities.


Final outcomes:
      front cover                               content page