Analysis: Front Cover

Last year, one of my biggest points of improvement was my front cover. I didn't follow enough conventions and it ended up looking more like a contents page than the cover of a magazine. This year, in an attempt to really straighten my work out and keep myself on task, I've analysed four front covers in closer detail to remind myself of what I need to do.

Analysis: Double Page Spread

I've analysed four examples of double page spreads of music magazines in order to fully understand what they are inclusive of regarding themes and content. Here's all the analysis I did.

 

Film Music Genre Research

Genre Moodboard

I've chosen film music as the genre for my music magazine, so, to begin with, I've done some research and used Pinterest to put together a collection of pictures that I feel sum up my genre in as little words as possible.

School Magazine: Cover

School Magazine: Contents Page

School Magazine: Photography

Here's a collection of all the photos I took for my front cover and contents page, along with all the reasons as to why I did and didn't crop and use them.

Here are the photos I will be using for my cover page and contents page.

School Magazine: Cover Plan

I've been thinking a lot more now about the real design that I want my front cover to have. Seeing as there will be a lot of individual doodles, I'm going to need a clear idea of where the headings will go and where the eyes of a reader will be drawn to first.

School Magazine: Planning

My target audience will be 11-16 year old girls, as the magazine is aimed at the lower school. This will be because the magazine will be about allowing more creativity in the school. As the lower school students make up the main body of the whole school, views are more likely to be heard and taken on board if more people are actively working for it.

The magazine will be called Doodles, as the whole theme of the magazine is creativity and expression. Everybody is familiar with the term ‘doodling’, and the students will appreciate having the bright, hand-drawn magazine cover. As students aren’t allowed to doodle in their books, they may be attracted to where they can doodle.

The cover will be a close-up aerial shot of an exercise book with a pencil on the side. The blank cover of the spread will have some digital doodles over the front, each done by some friends I have. These will therefore be genuine doodles, edited onto the schoolbook cover of the magazine, keeping with the school theme and the doodles that students put in their books.

The shot will be inside for the school’s natural lighting, making sure the pages don’t look an unfamiliar colour or texture so that all readers know what it is and the purpose of it. The picture will spread the entirety of the colour.

Current ideas for the magazine:

·         Bright room, so that the lines on the page are visible.

·         Sharpened pencil to promote the idea of just-drawn doodles and schoolwork.

·         Blank pages in a school exercise book.

The magazine will be given out in form times such as registration or PSHE. This will ensure that all of the students know that the magazine is available, and all the students that would like a copy will get one. Teachers will be provided with a brief explanation of the contents of the magazine in order to inform students of what they are receiving.

The contents page will feature many doodles in relation to and to accompany the words on the page. Page numbers and references will be used to ease of access to articles readers would like to see. The contents page will also be an exercise book, this time the inside as if just opening the exercise book. The main article will be an interesting debate comparing prisons and school, and which has more freedom. This will attract more readers, including those who have taken a disliking to education (as, let’s be honest, most have).

Magazine Cover Analysis

I've analysed the cover of an existing music magazine so I know the main features. This will give me a good idea as to what I need to include on the covers of both my school magazine and my own music magazine when the time comes. I've chosen Pianist, a magazine I'm very familiar with.

Hello!

Hi there, my name's Lizzie Shorter, and I'm resubmitting my AS coursework this year. I've changed a few bits up because last year it didn't look enough like a real music magazine, so this year my aim is to keep things strictly music. Let's have another go, starting with a simple warm-up task: the planning and making of a school magazine.