I believe that my school magazine front cover and contents
page follow most of the conventions found in a real magazine. My front cover
has a masthead placed at the top of the cover and a barcode in the bottom right
which follows the ‘Z rule’ which
is used when designing professional magazines.
I also used bylines on the cover to show articles that would be in the
magazine which would encourage people to buy the magazine. I used smaller font
on text that was less important like the date, issue number and price so that
the audiences main focus was on the main image and bylines. My contents page
follows a 50:50 text to image ratio, which is a common feature with
professional contents pages. Whilst I followed conventions, I did also
challenge them. For my front cover I didn't use a headline, which implies that
there is no main article within the magazine. On professional magazine cover
you would be able to find a headline, cover-line and bylines. My contents page
also doesn't feature any text describing what the picture shows, it only has
the page number that you will find it on with the related article.
When designing my magazine I wanted to make sure that it
was appropriate and appealing for all social groups. At Chislehurst School for
Girls, there are a variety of social groups and I want my magazine to appeal to
all of them. I used a photograph of 2 sixth form students of different races on
my front cover as well as in my contents page. I used sixth form students
because they are the oldest year pupils within the school and don't have to
wear the school uniform. I also included different articles within my magazine
which would appeal to all students at the school as well as teachers and even
parents.
