Preliminary Task

Preliminary Exercise

Research

The codes and conventions of a magazine front cover

• Cover lines frame the main image.
• The main cover lines are usually about two or three lines long.
• Cover lines are mainly to the left.
• The cover lines give information about the contents of the magazine.
• Cover lines intrigue the audience and provoke interest.
• The typography is either sans (with) of serif (without).
• The letters all look alike.
• The text is consistent throughout.
• Only a few fonts are used.
• Connotations of the font reflect the target audience and the subject.
• The positioning statement is by the title; either above or below.
• The positioning statement positions the magazine in the market.
• There is always a issue date and price.
• The puff advertises something for nothing.
• Magazine covers usually have some sort of graphic.
• There is usually a strip at the top or bottom of the page which lists names and topics. It tells you about stuff that doesn't fit into the cover lines.

The codes and conventions of a contents page

• Headings are used to divide up the contents.
• Sometimes there is an editorial letter (not always) which has a picture.
• There is one main image.
• Then some smaller images.
• There is a consistent colour scheme.
• Page numbers on the pictures anchor the image to written content.
• There are usually two to three columns.
• There is sometimes subscription details.
• They have white backgrounds the majority of the time.
• The title of the magazine is repeated.
• There is an issue date.
• It has the page numbers and then text (about the article).
• The sub line is in smaller text.
• There are regular (articles which appear in each issue) and feature (articles which are a one off) articles.
• The contents page usually contains the email address of the magazine and contact details.

Planning

Task One

Title: Graded

Mise-en-scene of front cover image: A sixth former in front of the common room looking confused. The sixth form centre door viewable in the background.

Cover lines:

• Common room cluster!
• Weatherhead wins the Tranmere cup!
• Toys R us
• World book week
• OAP computer club :)

Task Two

This is a rough sketch of my magazine front cover including the title, issue date, price and cover lines.













Task three
Regular content: Iris winners of the week, True story, problems page, Crossword/games page, Horoscope, What's happening this week?, Editors letter, iris giveaway, voluntary positions, Lunch menus.

Feature Articles: Common room cluster!, Weatherhead wins the Tranmere cup!, Toys R us, World book week, OAP computer club :), trouble with timetables, playground pastimes, Byrne baby Byrne, Ballistic about Berlin - The trip!, GCSE results, New child development room.

Task Four

This is a rough sketch of my magazine contents page.

Task Five
These are all the photo's i took for my magazine's contents page.

Used:

Not used:

This is my front cover image:

Task Nine

For my media coursework i was asked to create a school magazine front cover and contents page. I created my front cover in photoshop and it follows the codes and conventions in many ways. For example, i used a a consistent colour scheme of blue, white and black. Moreover, the title of my magazine is one word which is a convention of a magazine front cover. My magazine also includes a puff, a strip line, a barcode and coverlines which are all conventions of magazine front covers. However, my front cover does not have a price or positioning statment. This is because i forgot, however i do not think this effects my magazine too greatly. Other than that i believe that i followed the codes and conventions of a magazine front cover well. Additionally, i made my contents page on QuarkXpress passport and tried to follow the codes and conventions to the best of my ability. I think i followed the codes and conventions well as i have kept to the colour scheme, included columns, pictures, page numbers and regular and feature articles. However, i challenged the magazine contents page codes and conventions by not including an editorial letter. However, not all magazines actually include this.

I used photoshop and QuarkXpress to produce my media products. I used Photoshop to make my magazine front cover. I did not edit any of my pictures greatly however i did edit my title in the blend options to make it original like real magazines do. I did however crop my main front cover image as it was not suitable for the specification although i wanted to use it. I also used QuarkXpress to make my contents page. I used this software because it allows my media product to have columns which is one of the codes and conventions of a magazine contents page. Moreover, i included five image on my contents page. However, i did not edit these images.

I have both strengths and weakness's on the media technologies that i used. I have never used QuarkXpress before this media product so i did not know too much about the program. I think this may have held me back. However, i do not think i struggled too much. On the other hand, i have used Photoshop many times before so i knew how to edit texts and images and what all of the tools did.

Front cover:

Contents page: