contents page anaylsis 2

This contents page is completely different from the other one. The colour scheme is much more sophisticated meaning that the target audience won’t be just set on teenagers this one will be for more young adults. The colour scheme is simple but effective black blur and white with a little bit of yellow but that is only used to make things stand out. By using these colours in particular go well with the background and the chosen images. There isn’t that many images on this contents page there is one main dominant image of a male in the centre right of the page and that draws your attention straight away to her. After that the other main thing that you would then look at would be the strip of three images directly underneath the contents header. On these images there is a page number which is in the exact same place on each image which keeps the consistency the same and looks professional. This contents page was taken from the music magazine ‘billboard’ and the layout is completely different to the other magazine. This one has two columns a little one on the left of the page which is a list of the charts this week for people to have a read through then the second column has the main contents page elements on it so images; page numbers and story lines to attract the reader. Then at the very bottom section of the page there is a box which inside tells you about events and things online this shows that the magazine is formal because to be able to book events and look into them you would have to be of a certain age so the language used for this music magazine is formal and this links and fits well with its target audience just as the last one did.

contents page analysis

As we can see by just looking at this contents page we can tell that the target audience is for teenagers because of the colours; the layout and the images that have been used. For example the colours that have been used are yellow, orange, pink, black and blue. These are a range of colours that don’t really go together and clash. The contents page looks really busy however; there isn’t much writing on it. I feel that the order in which the number of the pages have been shown on the contents page are quite hard to understand and mixed up. The language that has been used on this contents page is defiantly informal one because of the target audience being teenagers and two because like ‘crazy in love’ and the ‘o’ being a love heart is something that children would do and ‘date Olly’ is make believe it’s not really going to happen but it works well as that is the sort of content that teenagers want to see. The page itself has been divided into two horizontally with the top half just an image which is of the front cover and the bottom half which is split into two columns, with information telling you what is on each page. Although there is a strip that runs down the whole of the page and it is located on the right hand side of the page with images of celebrities with a title; ‘hot posters’ which will make girls want them and to turn to them pages. Overall, the contents page looks busy and colourful which appeals and suits its target audience well.

double page spread 2

This double page spread has a very simple design which consists of one large image on one page and a rather large article on the other; this has been taken from the music magazine ‘Q’. As we can see the double page spread is all about the pop sensation lady gaga. Compared to the other double page spread from another magazine we can see that this has a more formal approach. We know this because of the three very detailed columns of writing. Also just by using a large letter ‘S’ to start one of the paragraphs tells us that its more formal because that’s normally found un a newspaper not a magazine. The image on the left page sees a mid-shot of Gaga revealing quite a lot of flesh which would appeal quite a lot to the male target audience however, with the amount of writing on the right hand page suggests to us that stereotypically men won’t really be sat reading that. The large letter ‘L’ that is covering the whole of the main article body stays with the house style of the magazine ‘Q’ as it is red this is another reason why I think that the image of lady gaga is in black and white; it not only shows how sophisticated and sexy she is but it also stays with the house style of ‘Q’ magazine. I feel that ‘Q’ magazine has an older target audience therefore the language will be more formal as you wouldn’t really talk informally to an older audience. I like this style and layout better than the one direction double page spread this is because it looks a lot more professional and sophisticated and appeals to a wider audience.

double page spread anaylsis

Language: this magazine double page spread is about two members from the hottest new boy band ‘one direction’ they are talking about there teenage lives and how difficult they found it. Therefore the language that has been used is informal as they are teenagers themselves and the article’s audience will be teenagers. If the language used was formal then it wouldn’t appeal top the target audience. for example the heading on the right hand side of the page from harry ‘I put my girlfriend before my grades’ shows just how immature the young band and teenagers can be, by putting their girlfriends before there grades which is what stays with them for the rest of their lives where as a girl friend is just a fling. Both of these story lines will appeal to teenagers because that is what they are all going through at the current time. Therefore they will buy the magazine to read all about one direction’s troubles.

Layout: the layout of this double page spread has two main images which are located on the right hand side of each page with the main article at the left hand side. This makes it look professional because it is the same on both sides. The colour scheme/ house style is kept the same across the double page spread with the colours being white, grey and blue. This also fits well with the colour of the images.

front cover analysis

The masthead: this is a silver colour which bonds well the background, which is purple, also the masthead is at the top of the page which will be one of the first things you see and read. The insides of the letters ‘a’ and‘d’ are coloured in different colours (green and blue) which adds a little more colour to the main look of the magazine.

Main cover image: this is of Miley Cyrus holding a large letter ‘M’ which is in gold. It is the main dominant image that stands out and it is the first thing that people see and the colours are black and gold these are sophisticated and sexy.

Other cover images: normally on other pop magazines there are other images around the front cover with other cover stories but on this magazine there is no other image but the main one of Miley Cyrus which shows how important she is to this magazine.

Main cover line: ‘the queen of teen grows up. But will her fans follow?’ by using the word ‘queen’ which is in a yellow/gold colour shows the importance of Miley in this magazine.

Other cover lines: the consistency of the colour scheme stays throughout the front cover because they are all title in yellow/gold and the little sub lines underneath are in white, which keeps the front cover looking professional.

Font: The entire font on the front cover is kept the same this shows how sophisticated and professional the magazine is because if all of the fonts were different it would look all mashed up and wouldn’t really appeal to a wider audience.

Puff: in the top left hand corner there is a little yellow strip that stands out dramatically from the rest which says ‘don’t miss’ this is leading you into reading the rest of the magazine as you want to find out what’s inside and what you would be missing if you didn’t read it.

my ideas

research questionnaire

1.    What colour scheme would you expect to see?

a.   Bright (pink, purple)

b.   Light  (blue, yellow)

c.    Dark (black, green)

d.   Other…

                                        

2.    What layout (house style) would you expect a pop magazine to have?

a.   Many columns

b.   Lots of images

c.    Lots of text and information

d.   Other…

3.    Who would expect to see in a pop magazine?

a.   One direction

b.   Cheryl Cole

c.    Queen

d.   Green day

4.    How much would you be willing to pay?

a.   £1 - £2

b.   £2 - £3

c.    £3 - £4

d.   £4+

5.    Would you expect there to be one dominate image or lots of little images on each page?

6.    Who would you expect the target audience to be for a pop magazine?

7.    How often would you buy the magazine?

Evaluation

Evaluation of Preliminary Magazine

I started by looking through different school magazines to collate my ideas for my own school magazine; and from them I found that they have a masthead which is called ‘excel’ this is blue and red which stands out in the back ground colour which on the one I looked at was black. This makes the main image stand out, also because the main cover story was about talent and the winners performed thriller so the black makes it more realistic with the story. The main house style of the school magazines was blue, red white and black and this was continued throughout the magazine which makes it look professional. At the bottom of the magazine there is a plug this tells us what’s happening inside the magazine, the date is always kept under the masthead and ‘The Armthorpe School Magazine’ is always kept above the masthead.

Then we moved on to the planning stage and this consisted of sketching out three different possible layouts for the front cover and three possible layouts for the contents page, which consisted of graphic design symbols, before deciding on the final design. When I had decided on the layout for my school magazine I had to go out and take lots of pictures to use on the front cover and on the contents page. I used this image of fame for the front covers main image and this is because The Armthorpe School specialises in the arts and sports therefore an image of one of the school productions is relevant. I then decided for my plugs I would stick with the arts theme by telling people that we will rock you and Shakespeare schools festival is coming to the Armthorpe school soon as a little taster so it will make them read on and want to come and watch them when they are on.

Inside my magazine my house style colours are black and white this is because the front cover image is quite dark and has a black background, so therefore sticking with the colour scheme of my front cover I decided to change from the original school magazine house style of blue red white and black just to black and white. I did this because I thought, and tried out that blue looked silly in contrast with my front cover. The original school magazines that we looked at were called ‘excel’ but I decided to change mine to ‘Academy news’ which is in white, this stands out on my black background.

I developed all of these ideas on Adobe Photoshop CS6 as I am new to this software therefore I only used basic skills like importing images and adding texts. I feel that when we move onto our final design on our music magazine I will be more confident with using Photoshop.  My contents page is very basic as all that is on it is text and images and a gradient background, which goes from black to white. Although it’s very basic and plan it sort of works as you don’t want it to be too busy this is because it is aimed at students and they can be quite lazy and not really be interested in what’s happening at school and they don’t really want to be read that much so I included lots of images so it is visually stimulating and appeals to a wider audience of students. One of my images is the stain glass window which we use to remember one our teachers I used this image and story in particular because I feel that it will appeal to all of the students as they can remember him by it and even new students who didn’t know him will find it interesting to read.

Overall, I am quite pleased with my first magazine that I have done, although there is still a lot of improvement to be done as I feel that the colour scheme is quite dull and there isn’t that much information on either my front cover or my contents page and they are quite bland and not that appealing to a wider school audience especially because of the colour scheme. Next time I do a magazine, which will be my music one I will make sure that the colours are bright and look aesthetically pleasing to the eye as this will make more people want to buy and look at it, also I will add more information to both the contents page and the front cover.