Friday

Evaluation of school magazine

I have now finished my front cover and contents page of my school magazine and looking at what I took from my research of the 'fusion' magazine I have completed an evaluation.

Evaluation

After looking at the existing school magazine ‘fusion’ I incorporated some of the techniques used into my own school magazine. ‘Fusion’ targeted teenagers with a bright red background as well as a mid shot with somebody shouting. I took on this idea by using a bright blue background and using a mid shot. I incorporated my own ideas by having the person on the front laughing instead of shouting still targeting the teenager but in a different way. I also took on the idea of grabbing the reader’s attention by having a ‘free’ sign displayed on the front cover. Instead of having ‘free issue 1’ I used ‘free revision guide inside’ to let the reader know that this magazine may be based on having a social life in school but is still a school magazine. ‘Fusion’ used white writing on the front cover which stands out well against the red background. I incorporated this by also using white writing but using a different font, a different size and in a different layout.

I also looked at the contents page on the existing school magazine ‘fusion’. I took the idea of having the word ‘contents’ written twice on the page; once as a large title and another small, in the corner of the magazine so when readers flick through they know which page is which. On the large ‘contents’ title I used a black, large font as it stands out against the white background so the reader straight away knows what page they are reading. ‘Fusion’ uses an image of a tape cassette with flowers and rainbow colours coming out of it. Instead of this, I took photos from around the school of various people doing day to day school things such as reading and researching on the school computers. I added 7 of these photographs down the right hand side of my contents page. I also incorporated the bright colours used on ‘fusions’ contents page by using a different colour for each page title and an orange colour for the sub-headings. Finally I used the line shape tool to add a line at the top and the bottom of the contents page to create a border giving it a sharp finish.

My experience of using cameras to take a medium close-up has taught me that the model’s facial expression is really important. This is because the front cover is what catches the reader’s attention therefore you want it to look eye catching so they will pick it up and read it. When taking the photograph the background is also important. This is because if it is to dark or too light it may be harder to edit on Photoshop later as some of the tools such as the lasso tool may find it harder to identify which part you are trying to edit. For the photograph used on my front cover, I used natural light. This is because I wanted my model to look natural by laughing therefore the natural light added to the natural feel the front cover conveys.

The main tools I used on Photoshop were the text tool, and the shape tool. For the front cover I used lots of different layers to add each piece of text. I did this because it would be easier to move different parts of the text around and change the size of the text without having to change all it. For the contents page I used the text tool, the shape tool and the move tool. By using the shape tool I was able to make 2 lines that went at the bottom and the top of the page creating a striking border. I used different layers when using the text tool so it was easier to move different parts of the text around and change different parts of the text to different colours. I used the move tool when adding in the photographs. I minimized each photograph so they were all the same size and moved them one under the other down the right side of the page.

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