Codes & Coventions Homework

The above image is my cover for "Photography Now" (made using Paint) with the main story being one I concieved myself with "The photos that changed the world". I chose this as the main story because I thought it would give me a chance to use a more creative image than just using a picture of nature or of a lanscape. I chose to go with "formal" and "classy" as the style for the magazine with red, black and white as this would appeal to the niche audience of a photography magazine.

The above image is the cover for "Film X" magazine, made using the program 'Paint'. I chose to put Donnie Darko on the cover, because I really like it and also because when I typed in cult film into google there was alot of outcry about "the best cult film ever" (DD) not being included upon the 25 greatest so I thought it might be a good story. The colour scheme is an unconventional colour in that I chose not to go for straight blue or standard red and went for "turquoise" because it reflects the nature of the unconventional cult films.

The above image is the cover for "Freedom" magazine. This was a much more open ended magazine in that there was a broad spectrum of stories and ideas that could have appeared on the cover so I decided to go with "Anorexia" as the issue adressed on the front cover. The colour scheme I went for I feel reflected the sophistcated nature of the niche audience of 'culture vultures'.

The above image is the cover for "Pitch" magazine. My favourite of the covers I produced, it is abit like Q in that it clearly doesn't lean towards any particular genre of music (shown in the green bubble) but rather celebrates "good music". The cover image was a zoomed in version of a Britney Spears single cover and the headline "It's Britney Bitch!" is not only a reference to one of her songs, but follows the convention of alliteration being used. The colour scheme is brigh and eye catching as it does not need to follow any conventions as there is a rather open market for the magazine

Magazine analysis and Image manipulation.

In the image manipulation task, we had a photo of ourselves and edited it. Whilst changing the colour of the picture i also re sized and cropped the image. Then using word i added a heading which i thought would be suitable for my sixth form magazine.



To help me gain some knowledge of different kinds of magazine covers, i have been researching various different ones. I decided this was one of the ones i liked the most. I think the colour scheme works really well. The pink and the white writing against the blue background make it look neat yet exciting. I think this colour scheme would captivate a reader's attention as it is presented as intriguing. I think the reader would be attracted to this magazine as the main image 'The XX' are dressed in black which makes them stand out and draws the attention towards them. However i do think as there is a lot of other main headings, this cover does look slightly cramped.

Magazine audiences.

Learning about different audiences used to categorise raders of magazines, has been useful to allow us to start thinking about what audience our magazine may be aimed at.
The link of the magazine 'Horse' is an example of a niche product, This is when there is a special area of demand for a certain product.
I think our magazine would be a aimed at a mass market audience as it would be categorising peopel who listen to the same type of music, which would be a bigegr audience than people who like certain things i.e Horses.

http://www.ipcmedia.com/brands/horse

http://rockalittle.com/q_magazine_cover_may2008.jpg

Looking through different magazine covers helped us prepare to amake our own. The colours on the masthead of this magazine matches with the model credit of the magazine. This adds a colour scheme to the magazine however it also means that the two most important parts of the magazine attract the readers attention, which could then lead them to buy the magazine. The otehr cover lines are all the same colour which help keep the magazine look tidy and easy to read. Other main features are also in red with writting underneath in white.
This also helped us to come up with a colour scheme for our own magazine that would have the same effect.

Questionnaire Results.

After creating our questionnaire we then asked ten people for their answers. After studying the results it became clear what our target audience would be. We then realised most of our readers would like certain aspects of the magazine to be educational and other parts to be fun. Out of the 10 people we asked 8 would read the school magazine if possible. We decided that also studying the people's answers who said they would not read a school magazine would maybe help us to broaden our magazine as to change people's opinions of a sterotypical school magazine. We decided that a magazine is a personal way of making sure that the readers get a say in the articles they will be reading. Our questionnaires helped us pick the final articles that will feature on our contents page.

Questionnaire

If avaliable, would you read the school magazine?
Yes No

How often do you read/purchase magazines?
Daily Weekly Monthly Rarely Never

Would you like to get to know the faculty more through the schoool magazine?
Yes No

Would you like an anonymous advice column to help you with your problems?
Yes No

Would you like news on upcoming school events?
Yes No

Would you liek to contribute towards the school magazine, through articles?
Yes No

What type of articles would you most like to see?
........................................................

Would you like up-to-date news on local events outside of school?
Yes No

Would you like reports on school trips from pupils present?
Yes No Yes, but not from pupils.

Woudl you like to be aware of changes happening within the school, through the magazine?
Yes No

Any final thoughts on the school magazine?
..........................................................

http://www.ipcmedia.com/brands/brands.php

In class we researched IPC Media. This helped us to gain more knowledge about the range of magazines and the different audiences that they are aimed at. This research will help us when we come to create our own magazine. We were able to look through the difefrent covers of magazines and the styles of colours and photos used.

The Mock-Up Of My Contents Page

This is the mock up of the contents page, Rachel and I created for our school magazine; SFM (Sixth form magazine). We created the articles and feature ideas based on the results of our questionnaire (explained in the results analysis) and the colour scheme follows the school's colours whilst encorporating Bright, Vibrant colours to appeal to teenagers.