School Magazine: Cover & Contents Evaluation

Evaluation: School Magazine Cover & Contents Page

Front Cover:

After doing thorough research into the codes and conventions of magazines, I found a feature of each one was a full image, relating to the purpose of the magazine. The image is often the most important factor as it immediately tells the reader what the magazine is about. My image is suitable for a school magazine as it features Whitley Bay School in the background with a student with a happy expression standing in a mid-close up in the foreground.

Another essential aspect of a magazine is the heading; my heading consists of two prominent and bold colours which contrast with the background giving it a sleek and professional appearance whilst still allowing the text to clearly stand out.

The way I have made use of various colours in addition to the main, blue colour scheme on the cover gives the magazine a slightly informal appearance, giving indications that the audience is intended for a younger age group, students. It is a feature that I intentionally used to grab the attention of the targeted age group.

I decided to feature quotes from students on the cover of my school magazine to ensure the readers comfort; it makes them want to continue to read as they have people to relate to when looking through the magazine. The quotes as well as the main stories that are included on the cover are in a standard font, because of this, the text is clear and easy to read and do not completely dominate the page, presenting consistent equality across the cover.

I’m reasonably happy with the end result of my front cover; I feel that it’s easily recognisable as being a school magazine which is a vital aspect of a magazine. I think I have chosen suitable colour and layout schemes which will portray the magazines purpose effectively whilst still having an eye-catching and appealing appearance. If I were to improve the cover I’d probably choose to take an image of the school in suitable lighting, and have my model’s photo taken on a white background so I could alter the lighting myself, making it ideal for my cover when I edited it into the image of the school.

Contents Page:

My contents page consists of the same colour scheme as my front cover; this allows the reader to make a connection between these two pages and shows continuity within them both as one follows from another.

The most important stories within my contents page are shown with slightly larger headings to give them more emphasis and dominance on the page. Each heading has a corresponding reference underneath to let the reader have an insight regarding the contents of each page; without physically having to turn to the page to find out.

I have included two images in connection to the information on the contents page which are positioned equally across the side. I found from my research that this was a popular feature in magazines as it keeps the reader’s attention across the whole page, rather than it only being focused on a small aspect of it.

If I were to develop this contents page more, I’d consider putting some sort of image in the background to make the overall appearance more interesting to look at, I would make sure to make it a wash out image so that the text and information on the page can still be read without difficulty. The aspect of this page that I particularly like is the boarder positioned above and below the information, the editing effect on it is the same  as the editing visible on the cover, I feel this creates continuity between the two pages, showing they are related to eachother.