Evaluation

Evaluation

Throughout the project of creating my school magazine I tried to use little things to make it stand out to the crowd. For example on my front page I used a box behind my title and toned down the opacity to make it slightly transparent so that the title would stand out to the reader more. I followed the general trend of the other magazines on my front cover which is basically having a large image on the background and text and exclusive articles on the front page. However on my contents page I did not follow the general trend as I based that on an image aswell which other magazines did not. This I believe gave my magazine an authentic touch which I thought would appeal to a reader. I found the fusion magazine inspiring so I vaguely based my magazine on it as I had one image on the front with text over the top of the image.

I have learnt a lot about using the technology in this project, for example I have learnt how to use the camera focus and zoom, this was crucial in my images as they had to be focused properly to have full effect. In both of the images I used I made sure that it had natural lighting in it so that it looked more professional and like the other magazines. When constructing my magazine front cover and contents page I used many tools in Photoshop, for example I had to use the cloning tool on some of my images to get rid of patchy bits on my image, also I used the duplication tool so that I could size the image up properly. I had to make sure when resizing my images that I held the shift button so that my image did not become distorted. As I stated before I also used the opacity tool, I toned it down to make my text stand out to the reader more.


Jamie Graham-Hall 12KEF

Front page analysis

Most of the magazines have bright enticing colours on the front cover, for example the fusion magazine, it is a bright red with white font to stand out to the reader and make it look appealing.
Most magazines are based around one image, this is to grab the reader’s attention and it also fills the front cover which means that the magazine companies can base their inside information around the image which gives an authentic touch. An example of this would be the fusion magazine, this magazine uses an image of a man which instantly catches the reader’s attention.
Most magazines have a colour scheme so it is easy for the reader to read. For example the fusion magazine colour scheme is red and white, two colours that blend quite well and make it easy to read. Some magazines take a different approach to the layout and colour scheme, for example the George Stephenson evolve magazine has about 10 to 15 images which gives it an exclusive touch as most magazines don’t have this on their front cover. Also it doesn’t really have a colour scheme as it is green, black, white and all different colours of text as well. The chill magazine is probably the most exclusive and vibrant as it is a bright red which catches the reader’s eye instantaneously, even though its colours are all over the place it does stick to a colour scheme of red, white and black.
When I design my front cover for my school magazine I will use no more than three colours in my colour scheme as well as keeping the same font size throughout the front cover. I will also include images to make the cover more interesting however I will base it on one image so that it grabs the reader’s attention instantaneously.

Contents Page analysis

On the contents page of most of the magazines they usually use large writing with a colour that will stand out so what they have written will stand out to the reader, for example on the chill magazine it says “What’s Going On?” in bold white writing to stand out on the red and black background behind it. The Bishopbriggs Academy magazine takes a rather boring approach as it has just a plain white background with grey and navy blue text with no images, they have left a lot of space also so as a reader this doesn’t look very appealing. Also the text is quite hard to read as it is rather small in comparison to the more vibrant and interesting magazine chill. The contents page for the fusion issue is a lot better and probably the best contents page out of all of the magazines as it has a brilliant image used on the contents page of a tape spilling out all sorts of colours, this gives it an authentic touch. However it hasn’t really stuck to a colour scheme as the text on it are allsorts ranging from pink to green. In comparison to the last magazine it has three images to its credit which make it much more appealing for a viewer of this magazine.
For my contents page I’m going to try and base it on one soul image and have text and more images over this image, although this sounds rather chaotic I will try to keep the colour scheme and order it so it looks smart and interesting for the readers.

Jamie Graham-Hall 12KEF