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

school magazine

Development of school magazine

My magazine will be made to catch the attention of pupils parents rather then students, so that parents can become my connected to the child's life, as children spend most of their day in school. after choosing my target consumers, I selected the key expectations that a 'parents school magazine would have:
- Mature
- Eloquent
- Serious
- Formal



To create a school magazine I started by taking pictures of the school in areas where their children confront on daily bases.





Now I can choose which of these three pictures would be my cover picture, to have my magazine looking very professional, mature I decided to research on other school magazine covers...

From my research I realised most of school magazine cover photo has students smiling, as seeing pupils smiling gives us the idea that the school is a happy place to assure parents they are comfortable and save. All pictures show school resources to show, this is to show how it has all equipment for a good education and great opportunities which is needed to have good students. A few of the cover pictures had eye contact with the audience which makes it more personal and adds to the attention it gets from the viewer , making them more drawn to the image.

I choose this picture to be my magazine cover photograph because was the only showing school resources and shows a lot of happiness, their behaviour shows eloquence also it is one of my only pictures which doesn't have a furniture which drags the attention, such as the book shelf or table.

My next step was to develop a title for my magazine as well as the font size and colour.



After testing different possibilities I decided that the title will be the schools name 'Montsaye Academy' to keep simple, formal and serious. I putted in a big size and with the font and colour as the school usually uses for parents school letters to keep traditional, as a school magazine is already very modern. I decided to also add the school logo next to the title to demonstrate a sense of pride and identity.
 

The third step is to add cover lines:







From testing a variety of possibilities for this step I found this part difficult as it was need a lot of time to make sure all cover lines would standout by making big enough to see from a long distance and contrasting enough to be able to read it clearly.

I tried to keep serious by making sure all cover lines colour were the school colours: blue, red, yellow, green. The font was also common and strait instead of wonky, to address formality.

Step four is accessories, all the accessories will make the magazine look more realistic. These details can make be easily seen in a magazine:




Barcode                                             Dateline                          

After adding these detail I have now asked advice to improve my magazine:

(RECORD VIDEO)

Understanding for initiative

- front cover photograph should have been done with pupils wearing uniform to show were they belong, formality, organisation and mostly what years the school works with. As the uniform is a rule for most students of the school, make clear it is a rule as most parents prefer their children wearing uniform to school. 

- search the usual amount of cover lines, there is too little information at the front cover this would low parents expectations on the amount of information they could receive.

-make cover lines smaller, to fit more cover lines and quotes.

- cheese quotes to make the front cover more interesting.

- use the opportunity to advertise website, for easier access and gain opportunity of having more parents support to the school.

-Include all school colours to create a pattern.

- Research if the bar code could be any useful

Advise development

Usual amount of cover lines research

 

After finding there are 4-6 cover lines usually in a school magazine I added other two cover

lines and a funny quote in a smaller size and with all school colours.

Does free magazines need bar code? research :

"a bar code only holds information nicely in the horizontal direction, a QR can do so vertically as well. This is why QR codes are referred to as two-dimensional, because they carry information both vertically and horizontally. Another direct result to this is greater potential to carry information in a smaller space. Compared to a bar code, it’s no competition at all."

http://www.mobile-qr-codes.org/qr-codes-vs-barcodes.html

From this information I thought it would be a good idea to instead of having a bar code which wouldn't be much use put a QR code which can hold a website. This would make live much easier for parents to access the school website by only scanning the QR code.

This is my final product after the changes from the advised points: