School Magazine Cover Deadline

The deadline for the completion of the school magazine front cover is:

Wednesday, 14th October 2015

School Magazine Front Cover Key Tasks

AS Preliminary Task

School Magazine Front Cover

The preliminary task is designed to help you learn the basics of page layout and design. You will not achieve a mark for the finished product, but if you do not complete the task, then fifteen marks will be deducted from the main task, the four pages of the music magazine.

You need to think about the following codes and conventions when you design your front page.

The Masthead

·        What is the name of the magazine?

·        What are the connotations of the masthead?

·        Is the colour scheme of the masthead appropriate?

·        Is the masthead a sufficient size?

Images

·        What is the main image on your cover? It should be a medium close-up (head and shoulders shot) of an appropriate model.

·        Is the main image an appropriate or conventional size?

·        Does the main image give a clear indication of the story that it is representing?

·        Is the composition of the main image clear on the page?

·        You should try to include at least one subsidiary image.

·        Is the subsidiary image an appropriate size?

·        Has the subsidiary image been placed in an appropriate position on the page?

·        Does the subsidiary image give a clear indication of the story that it is representing?

Language

·        You should use sell lines on the front cover in order to give the reader an idea of the stories that can be found in the magazine (Should be at least 3)

·        The sell lines should give a clear indication about the main stories within the magazine and should appeal to the target audience. The splash for the main story should be an appropriate size and positioned carefully on the page

·        The language should be informative and entertaining.

·        You should try and use literary devices in order to make your cover more interesting. E.g. puns, alliteration, etc.

·        Spelling and punctuation must be accurate.

·        You should use a range of appropriate fonts. (At least 2)

·        The font size should be clear and appropriate.

·        You should use a consistent and appropriate colour scheme that appeals to the target audience.

Layout and Design

·        The layout of the front page should be clear and well organised.

·        The front page should appeal to the reader.

·        The design of your front page should be recognisable as the front cover of a school magazine.

 Key Tasks to Complete During the Planning Stage

1.    Analyse the front cover of at least three different types of magazine. Try to identify the key codes and conventions of layout and design.

2.   Plan your ideas for your front cover. Think about the following: Masthead, Sell Lines, Strap Lines, Slogan, Main Image, Subsidiary Images, etc.

3.   Create a rough draft of your magazine front cover.

4.   Complete the planning documents to plan your photo shoots.

6.   Take your photographs. You will need to book the camera if you are using school equipment!

7.   Edit your photographs using Photoshop. You should spend a minimum of 1 hour using Photoshop.

8.   Create your cover using Adobe Indesign or another suitable Desk Top Publishing Programme. You will need to book your sessions in the media room. You should aim to spend a minimum of 3 hours using Adobe Indesign.

9.   Evaluate your front cover.

10.                You should update your blog at every stage of the production process. Remember to save jpegs that show every stage of the development of your pictures and cover.

AS Media Coursework

Print Production

Preliminary Exercise

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally, candidates must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Research and Planning

Before you start to create your front page, you will need to research the codes and conventions of magazine front covers. This will involve analysing how front covers are designed and how they communicate with the target audience. You will need to study the layout, masthead, images and text in order to understand how magazine front covers work.

You will also need to carry out some market research into the target audience for your magazine. This will involve creating a questionnaire in order to find out the views of the audience which will enable you to include content that will appeal to the people that are going to read the magazine.

Drafting will also be a very important aspect of the planning stage. You should always come up with a number of different ideas for the layout, images and text that you are going to use to design your magazine page. For example, you might come up with four or five different ideas for the masthead of your magazine, and then find out which is the most popular with the target audience by creating a questionnaire to find out their views.

Create the front page of a school/college magazine.

• This preliminary task will prepare you for your main task which is to produce the front cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine.

Use the following elements to create a draft of the front page of a school magazine:

1. Masthead: Think of a name for the magazine.
2. Images: What picture(s) are you going to use?
3. Cover lines: What information are you going to include on the cover?
4. Captions: These are used to place the pictures into context.
5. Flashes
6. Codes and Conventions: Details you would expect to find on the front of a magazine
7. Layout and Design: The way the words and pictures are organised on the page.

·        You should aim to spend at least 2-3 hours using the computer during the construction of your front page.

·         Using the Object tool (rectangle, ellipse, polygon)

·         Using the Type tool

·         Using at least 3 Layers

·         Using Colour for background and text

·         Using appropriate fonts

·         Creating text effects using Stroke function.

·         Altering the size of text

·         Using the Rotate tool where possible

·         Taking appropriate images

·         Importing images from Adobe Bridge

·         Resizing Images

·         Cropping Images

·         Background Removal of images using Photoshop

·         Creating a Clipping Path for images

·         Using Feathering where appropriate

·         Using Corner Effects where possible

·         Using Drop Shadow where possible

·         Using Transparency where possible

·         Using Text Wrap where possible

The Deadline for the rough draft of your school magazine cover is Wednesday, 14th October 2015

School magazine covers from jonesjrah1973