"Guru magazine" contents page

my final conents page.

construction of my contents page

"guru school magazine"

my final front page

 

 

 

construction of my front page

using in design I began by placing my banner and my picture in my desired position, this allowed me to plan ahead about exactly where I was going to place each piece of text. I then went on to begin placing the different texts in the area which I wanted (this was already planned by my draft drawings). As I was placing the different texts in the right places, I was playing around with the sizes, making sure each piece of text was alligned with the previous piece of text, at this point I decided I was colour leave choosing colour schemes until later.

After all the text had been placed in their correct places. I then started playing around with the colour scheme, in order to keep the different oclours from looking to ridiculous I had to make sure that I stuck to about three or four different colours to avoid it looking like too much colour on one page.

To finish off I added the star along with the text promoting the “competition”. My vision for this was to make it stand out more than any other text on the page, I wanted it to be the first thing they saw, so, with the colour scheme in mind which is why I gave the star a yellow background (because it matched with the school shirt of the model) and gave the actual text the colour of the banner name. I then finally added a barcode in order to make it look lik ea realistic magazine and addeda date.

contents page research

 

This contents page I feel is interesting and would appeal to my target audience with a few changes, in my opinion it is very eye-catching, there’s a lot going on but it’s ordered, for example the fact that the pictures which tell you what is to come in the rest of the magazine are laid out in different positions on the page and at different sizes adds a sense of excitement to the contents page, I feel it would make the reader more intrigued to know what else is to come. As well as that the way the text on page has been set out also adds character to the contents page, the contrast of bold text and non-bold text gives each text a sense of importance, also I love the fact that they’ve made the contents have a personal feel to it almost like the reader is having a one to one conversation I feel this type of way of writing the contents would greatly appeal to my target audience. My criticism would be that there is little colour of text which make the contents page seem a bit boring, I feel there should be more colour on the page in order to catch the eye of the reader and keep them interested and intrigued.

This school contents page is quite boring in terms of colour with the contrast of blue and white alone and also the layout, in my opinion it would be too dull for my target market, however what I do like is the half boarder effect, I think that brings a sense of fun to the contents page and makes it look a bit more interesting. Furthermore I like the fact that the contents page has pictures which capture what the magazine is about and what is going to be in the rest of magazine on the contents page however the way it has been arranged in my opinion lacks excitement and doesn’t really invite the reader to be intrigued as to what the rest of the magazine has to offer. Lastly the font in my opinion isn’t really eye-catching or suited for a secondary school audience because it looks very formal (apart from the title font) however the way the actual text has laid out is very clear and straight forward and easy to read which in my opinion would appeal to a secondary school audience.

This contents page I feel is very simplistic it sort of looks interesting, there is lots of colour and it’s very straight to the point in the sense that you’re not distracted by pictures and smaller text, however in my opinion it is a little bit too simple, even though there is a lot of colour it lacks excitement. The way the text is laid out is confusing, it is too compacted and on if you were trying to find a page quickly it would be difficult. To then add to that the font of the text along with the fact that they are in capitals in my opinion would definitely not look appealing for my target audience. As well as that the text of the title doesn’t match the rest of the text in my opinion they not only don’t go together it looks inconsistent. Also what looks to be the school badge which is on either side of the title looks totally out of place as it doesn’t go with any of the colours of the text.

Font research

How I chose my magazine banner.

To come to my final magazine banner I had to go through many different stages using Adobe InDesign CS4 . I began by copying 20 different text boxes with the chosen name of my magazine, I then randomly gave each one of the different texts’ different fonts. This gave me a chance to evaluate what type of font I wanted and eventually led me to decide three different types  fonts which were similar because they all matched the sort of writing I wanted on my magazine and I then narrowed it down to one which I thought most matched my view for the font of the banner.

I then went on to play around with my chosen font by using capital and lower case letters and using a curvy line which the letters would sit on, this made me come to the decision that I wanted the banner to be all lower case letters but with the first letter “g” being slightly larger than the rest of the text and I decided to stick with the curvy line. After the font and the rough style had been chosen I went on to choose the colour, I did this by using a contrast of light and dark colours, this led me to deicide that I wanted quite a dark blue colour however I didn’t know the specific sort of tone of dark blue that I wanted so I experimented with a variety of different blue’s until I came to my final choice.

Because my magazine is targeted at a younger 11-13 year old audience I knew that even though the main text was quite dark there still had to be an eye-catching colour to appeal to this sort of audience. This is why I experimented with a variety of bright, bold colours (and also increased the thickness of the curvy line) which still matched the chosen colour of the name, but would make the magazine stand out more. This whole process made me come to my final conclusion for a magazine banner.

 

 

Brief

Brief:

The concept of my magazine is going to be based around an inner city secondary school named St. Catherine’s academy that are at the beginning of a new school year, and want a light hearted guide which appeals to parents and students (strongly aimed at the year seven/eight age roughly 10 to13 years old) on how to have a successful new school year. The magazine should consist of; advice on how to make a smooth transition from summer holidays to focusing at school, best places to purchase stationery, healthy eating e.c.t. ultimately it should be almost like a guide on how to have the best start to secondary school and answer all the questions that a new pupil at the school would have.