PRELIMINARY TASK

As a mock up, I created a front cover and contents page for a school magazine, this allowed me to encounter and be more aware of the process involves with producing a magazine. I included photos I took personally and used a consistent house style of blue and white to match the logo of the school. I applied these colours to the text and background to emphasise the colour scheme of the school. 

This is the front cover I created for the school magazine. I used photoshop to add effects to the image so it looks more professional. The logo is positioned at the left hand corner of the magazine The main photo is a mid-shot of two female students happily conversing with one another, which highlights the sixth form's friendly atmosphere.The shot was purposely taken to show what's above the students head, which is a label that reads 'Sixth Form Study Room' positioned above the door to suggest what the room is. This connotes that the two students belong to the school's Sixth Form Centre, and although it is a still-image the picture also indicates that the two students are leaving the study room after completing all their sixth form work/revision. Props such as folders, are used to  emphasise the hard working life of a student at Lordswood Girls School and Sixth Form Centre. The image is also complementary to the strap line, which states, 'New study room for Sixth formers' therefore suggesting that the room beyond this door is the new study room mentioned in the school magazine and the happy faces of the students suggest that they are pleased with this new change at Lordswood. Moreover, the image takes up most of the front page because it is the main focus and will attract the largest audience. However its disadvantage is that its background is very sophisticated and as a result the text is unclear and doesn't stand out as much. Overall, the image illustrates the text well as it shows female students at Lordswood Girls school and refers to the the 'new study room' in the strap line.  

This is the contents page of the school magazine. Here I included several photos of students studying to show how passionate and enthusiastic students are at Lordswood. The logo is placed in the top right hand corner, similar to the front page, this shows consistency in the layout of the magazine. This is also shown through the repetitive use of the same font, size and colour scheme of blue and white to emphasise the colours of the school and the logo. It is necessary to keep a consistent style so that the magazine is unique and distinguishable from other school magazines. As a result, you will be able to tell the contents page belongs to Lordswood Girls School before seeing the logo or school name through looking at the colours and typeface. The text is aligned in the centre and takes up three-quarters of the whole page because it is the main focus of a 'contents page'. The page numbers are included to guide the reader through the magazine, and make it easier for them to follow because it informs them of the magazine's content through one page rather than having to go through every page of the magazine. 

Through this task, I decided to take on some precautions before creating my own music magazine:

• Firstly, I will carry out research into similar media so that I have a full overview of the conventions such as colours, typeface, layout and type of images used. As a result my magazine will match these generic conventions too.
• When taking a photo think of it as a whole and not just the main part of it, that is the person/ or object, but the background too because if I want to include text the background needs to be less sophisticated to allow the text to stand out.