Production - Task 2 - Magazine Final

A Level Media - Transition Project

1) Analyse the front cover of a school magazine.

Fonts are somewhat playful and informal such as ‘Parent’ yet some are formal like ‘school’. These fonts are likely used to catch the reader’s eye along with the bright colours of the texts on the cover. The masthead; ‘Parent and School’ is red and contrasts the primarily white background behind it. The masthead has a quite large font to draw audiences, and placed sensibly where it doesn’t obscure the relevant background image. The cover line is given in large, bold, green letters is to draw attention to the major theme/story/focus within the magazine. Font is not uniform within the magazine cover; six-seven different fonts are used, this doesn’t give the magazine a constant image, and suggests informality.

The title text and the cover line are also given a white stroke outline, along with a dark shadow behind the title to further bring in a potential reader.

Towards the bottom of the cover issue and date information is given in a darker red against a dark grey background because it is not as important but it does show the reader when the magazine is available from and to, as well as issue information to notify the current issue that the magazine is on. More stories are given light towards the bottom of the magazine cover; this shows readers more information relating to the content of the magazine. The bottom of the magazine also explains how this magazine is ‘The Official Magazine of the New Zealand Parent Teacher Association Inc – Est. 1969’, this shows the reader that the magazine must be popular if it’s been going for 46 years and that it’s official. The image contains various schooling equipment such as a microscope and a pen, to further cement the point that this is a school magazine. The layout of the magazine is somewhat cluttered with different fonts, sizes, colours and shapes and most of the cover is taken by the image so the ratio to image and text is clearly one sided.

The image focuses on the student, suggesting that this magazine also focuses on the students and their education. The image uses an over-the-shoulder shot which reveal two more subjects in a mid-shot/two-shot configuration in a blurry fashion

The tone of the magazine being primarily formal suggests that it is aimed at mature audiences, such as the title advocates: parents, rather than the school children themselves.

2) Produce the front cover of the magazine…

3) Evaluation

I used Klavika Bold as it is neat, tidy, and has some formal elements as well as informal elements; such as the no capitalisation of the words. This makes the magazine seem personal, but not unprofessional. The layout is much the same. It is neat enough to send a strong message, but at the same time being entertaining and attractive to younger audiences. The title and the text of the cover are at a slant, to stand out further than competitors’ magazines. I’ve used a large amount of gradients on the cover to make it seem ‘cool’, instead of sticking to the same ‘boring’ school magazine format. My magazine uses bright and engaging colours in interesting ways that seem youthful and eye-catching. The image’s subject takes a wide amount of the magazine cover to stress that ‘this is a school magazine after all’ and relates to the content/context of the magazine. The subject of the image has also been cropped and was placed in front of the title, to metaphorically put the focus on the student and the Gaussian blur around the subject also reflects this idea. Overall this was to make the magazine stand out further. The mode of address is very direct, with no rhetorical questions and clear headings and titles for some of the content within the magazine. This is not conventional, as regular school magazines lack the ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ approach, and this leads me to comparing it to a regular school magazine.

With regular school magazines, the language is rather ‘too’ formal and is really aimed at parents if not older students and this cover lacks this tradition.

By Jordan Saward.

Evaluation - Task 7 - Progression

Evaluation - Task 6 - Technology

Evaluation - Task 1 - Conventions

Evaluation - Task 4 & 5 - Target Audience

Evaluation - Task 3 - Institutions