1. Preliminary Task

School Magazine cover

This was devised following a basic and appealing red colour scheme, as I had planned to on  my hand-drawn mock up. The central image was taken at mid-shot as it is a theme that follows on through popular magazine covers, and here I think it works well with the masthead just above it. I used graffiti writing for my masthead as this school magazine would traditionally be aimed at kids aged 11-16, and so it would help it appeal to my target audience effectively. Also, the use of a simplistic shape to advertise my feature articles helps bring yellow into the colour pallet I have used on this particular cover, and attract the eye of the reader.

School magazine front cover mock up - drawn by hand

School Magazine Analysis

This school magazine is clever and inventive. The way the lined a4 background is used helps the bright pink and yellow colour pallet stand out, and gives the cover an informal feel about it. Rather than a central image, this magazine cover uses a sketched picture representing the name of the school. This is unique to most magazines, and the drawn floral pattern represents the creative side to the school. The masthead is clear, and is given shading to stand out from the background and also look informal. The featured articles in the bottom left hand corner follow the colour pallet, and flow with the informal look that the magazine has been given. This is also shown through the composition, as the layout appears to have no set design, and is perceived by the audience as messy.

In contrast to the first magazine cover, this has a much more simple and basic, yet effective design.  The bright blue sky, and colourful green grass connote happiness, and so instantly attract an audience. The bright school badge adds to the composition of the magazine, and contrasts its background with bolder colours, such as the purple and yellow. The masthead has purposely been given a fancy typeset to give the reader an idea of self pride given off from the school instantly, this technique is mirrored in the edition date. This contrasts massively to the first magazine cover, in the sense that it is much more formal and gives off a much brighter, and sensible feel.

This magazine contrasts to both of the previous magazine covers. The masthead complies with the majority of the magazine and follows the green colour pallet closely, though yellow is also used to connote quite a bright and positive feel to the cover. The central image is light hearted and uses a direct mode of address as the girl is looking out at the audience. The tagline sits just under the masthead, which is uncommon, but still effective in making the audience’s eyes flow down and around the rest of the cover. The featured articles also follow the colour pallet and give us, as the audience, an interesting in-sight into what we would find in this edition. The logo in the top right hand corner is also simple, and easily recognisable. To comment on the composition, I would say that though the green textboxes to highlight the featured articles look slightly un-professional, the general layout, and the strong shape that has been used in the central image, creates the most interesting and easy on the eye cover from the three I have analysed.

Although the first magazine cover is creative, and accomplishes its purpose of an art magazine cover, it had a less professional look to it than the other two. The bold colours, although eye catching, weren’t used thoroughly enough, which gave the majority of the cover quite a plain and boring appearance. This contrasted completely to the second magazine, which was a lot more simple, but clever. The basic composition gave the cover a large space for the central image. Unfortunately, the lack of articles anywhere, fails to entice the reader to look further on. However, this again contrasts in the third magazine cover, which seems to tick most boxes. An informal typeset, strong central image and bright colour pallet, combined with the interesting featured articles, successfully enticed me to want to read on.

I used black and red as they're extremely common and eye catching, for contents pages. The slanted and informal font connotes the attitudes of teenagers, and will therefore appeal to them in a school magazine format.