Evaluation

My magazine is similar to that of other sixth form magazines. However, I wanted it to look individual to Fortismere. My front cover layout follows the same conventions of many other college/school magazines, using a picture of students on a school trip. The image is of students at the school, i chose this image because it makes the magazine seem more personal and focused on their sixth form. I edited the image my making it black and white, increasing the contrast, darkening it and finally cropping it. Other magazines seemed to keep their images fairly the same, keeping them the same bright colours, I chose to change my image to make the front cover seem more professional. Most sixth form magazines didn't seem to have manipulated their image as most of the images were of the school buildings.

My magazine is a winter/Christmas issue, with this in mind I used this as an overall theme for the design of the magazine. I found an image of a snow flake and copied this onto the front cover and scattered them in different place to add to the winter theme. However i didn't want to crowd the front cover with too many images or text.

My magazine is aimed at students, so i decided to make it geared towards today's youth. I used bright colours, grabbing text and eye catching images. Although, i wanted to show a fun, youthful image and design i also wanted to show students enjoying working, in this case showing students on a trip.

The magazine would be published by a local company to save money, and be on sale in the sixth from block at lunch time. The magazine would cost £1 and would include the weekly newsletter. I decided to keep the cost low to attract more people to buy it and spend any extra money on competition prizes. The magazine would also be accessible to teachers and parents, as the magazine would feature information about school events and news. Knowing that teachers and parents would read the magazine i would include information that would concern them.

During this process i have analysed other sixth form magazines so help me to decide on the layout, image, fonts and context i should include in my magazine. I have also learnt how to use photoshop to edit images. I learnt how to take a successful picture and compose a magazine front cover layout. I am glad i have learnt how to use photoshop because it will be very useful for other media projects and in later life.

My mock ups of the front cover of my magazine are fairly undeveloped but have been extremely useful. The mock up i chose has allowed me to develop my idea clearly and produce the product i desired. My research on other sixth form magazine was also very useful in helping me develop my final ideas for my magazine front cover and contents page.