School magazine evaluation for Media Studies

1. Masthead
Here is the denotation of my headline. I used the
constant same font throughout to give it a neat and
professional look to the mag. However it does look
quite plain and boring an d doesn’t quite catch the eye.
To improve this I should have made the font more bold
and eye catching to grab the readers attention.
Feature article photograph
Here I took a photograph of a sixth form student using
one of the cameras supplied by the media department.
I cropped the background of the original photo out as I
felt it did not look as appealing as a plain red
background. This medium shot has been cut out well
using the magnetic lasso and cropping tools in
Photoshop. Despite this, the photograph could look
more appealing if I was more neater with the lasso tool
and remove the light on his back from the original
background. Furthermore I could have made the image
more effective if the original shot was more of a close
up and made it cover more of the page to give it more
of an impact.
Puff
Here is a puff advertising the schools social media twitter account on the front cover. This allows readers to be able to
find the school online and will gain more of an reputation. To improve this is could have added the twitter logo and
made it in small print as the text does not have to be this large where it covers over some of the image. Furthermore,
I could have added more social media links instead of just twitter like Facebook or the schools website.
Plug
This is used to entice the reader into reading the
magazine to find out what this plug means. It doesn’t
relate to the cover photograph of the student and
whereas it should have had some relevance to the
cover photo. However, the text is again very bland and
boring and in that sense does not attract as many
readers as it could. Furthermore, the language itself
could be more enticing, what it currently says isn’t as
engrossing as saying something else.
Style
The front cover is in quite a plain and simple style with
a simple red colour background to somewhat match
the cover photo and white text and title. I have also
include a logo and multiple plugs and puffs. I feel like
the colour isn’t quite exciting enough to entice readers
in as it is quite bland and almost too simple. The text
follows the same pattern as the background colour as it
is not appealing or enticing enough for a front cover. I
should have made the plugs stand out more
prominently and to make up for the lack of background
by either enlarging the photograph to take up more of
the page or by changing the background to something
that is both enticing and compliments the cover photo.

2. Contents headline
Here is the bold heading for my contents page which
equally needs to grab the readers attention and entice
the reader in; it has to let the reader know that this is
where the content page is. In that regard, I could have
made the headline more extravagant by changing the
font or size of it to make it more eye-catching. It is very
plain and consistent, by changing this the title would
have stood out more then before.
Contents text
This where I list the contents of what is inside this
particular edition of the magazine. I have centralised
the text which is perhaps not the most appealing thing
to do in regards to a magazine contents page. The txt
should be in vertical columns to make it look more neat
and easier to follow. Furthermore, the text is again
plain and consistent and follows a similar trend to the
headline in that it does not excite or catch the attention
of the reader; However, this isn’t as important to do for
just the text but shouldn’t be disregarded nonetheless.
I have kept a consistent house style throughout my
front cover and have done the same here with the
same white font and red background.
Images
Here I have provided images with some sort of meaning to the mag. They are images I captured using a camera provided by the media department whilst in the school and
they are relevant to mag. Despite this, the mis-en-scene doesn’t suggest anything exciting going on; there is no life in any of the pictures. This doesn’t quite entice the
reader into reading about these images as it most likely wont have any interest with them as there is seems to be nothing interesting going on.
Style
The contents page has quite a plain
and boring mode of address. The
background has remained as dull as
the cover despite keeping the house
style, the txt has remained the same
despite getting the point across and
the images are not as enticing
despite having a particular meaning
to the school and contents page.
Furthermore there is also quite a lot
of blank space, space that is not
filled with images or any text. I could
have added more variation to this
page by filling the whole page with
useful things to sell the magazine on
as currently I have not sold the
magazine that well as it does not
look that interesting or an exciting
read.

3. Text tool
This is the tool I used to place text onto my magazine
cover. I would then adjust the colour and the font to
match the house style. I made the headline a larger and
more bolder font but kept the colour the same. This
made it stand out above the text, but perhaps a change
in colour could have made it even more bolder and
stand out more.
Fill tool
This is a tool I used to quickly colour a certain image in
instead of going over it with the brush or pencil tool.
This is a more quick and effective method when it came
to giving colour to a large plain object like the
background.
Magic wand and Magnetic lasso tool
The two tools I used here was to cut the image of the
student out of the background as neatly and easily as
possible. I started with the magic wand tool, however
this proved rather difficult as the background was not a
plain, consistent colour but rather a combination of
objects and colours which made the magic wand tool
difficult to use and navigate. I was better off by drawing
around the student with the magnetic lasso tool as it
doesn’t take into account the inconsistent background.
Eraser tool
This tool was used to correct any mistakes made and to
sharpen out the edges made when cutting the image
with a lasso tool.
Google images
I used google images to import a picture of the school
logo to give the mag a feel of the school it is
representing. I also used it to give the magazine a
barcode to make it more authentic.
Cannon 100D camera
I used this camera to capture the images around the
school for the contents and image on the front cover of
the magazine.