Preliminary Task and Evaluation

For my Preliminary Task, I have created a front cover and contents page for a school magazine. This is what I came up with;

Evaluation

This magazine is a Niche Market magazine, because only people from STACS sixth form would be interested in buying it. However, it is Mass Marketing in the sense that it is suposed to cater for everybody within the sixth form.

Front Cover;

• The masthead is conventional as it covers the top of the magazine. It encorporates the name of the 6th form college, meaning it explicity tells us who this magazine is aimed at. The school badge on it's side shows how it's related to STACS but the way I have put it on it's side shows that we're seperate from the rest of the school, and it's just aimed at the 6th form.
• The main image is a mid shot of a 6th form student, who is going to do an article with Andy from Blue Peter. She is recogniseable, and the eye contact directly addresses the audience. In the mise-en-scene, I have used glasses, a notebook and a pen, as she is my 'journalist'. The costume is casual, because that is how sixth formers dress at STACS. The hair is tied back into a 'sophisticated' bun as she is pretending to be a 'sophisticated' journalist. I have used high key lighting, and casual makeup too.
•  The main coverline is infront of the picture. It is the same font and colour at the masthead which fits in the house style.  'Past Pupil' is alliteration, which attracts the attention of the reader. This is also a puff as it is an exclusive interview because he is a past pupil.
• The other coverlines are conventional as they are to the left of the cover. The first coverline is appealing to the audience as it directly concerns them. In the 2nd cover line uses the personal pronoun 'your' which directly addresses the audience, involving them. The last coverline uses alliteration 'terrific theatre trip' which also appeals to the reader.
• The pug i have used is the 'NEW' in the yellow bubble - this appeals to the reader because it goes against the house style colour scheme, so it stands out, and the reader can see that what they are looking at is brand new.
• The barcode and date/price are conventional and are situated in the bottom left hand corner.
• The house style colours are; Red/Black/White, and I have used them throughout. The font style is Calibri.

I used a word processor to complete my preliminary task. The Masthead was made using wordart. I used basic shapes to create the speech bubble, the star, and the text boxes for the writing i have put on the cover. To crop the image I used the picture formatting tool.

Contents;

• The same font style and colors have been used, because they are the house style of the magazine.
• The pictures on the left hand side offer the main articles within the magazine, and they tie in with the front cover too and the main coverlines on that.
• I have used personal pronouns in most page titles, which directly address and engage the reader.
• I have used a triple 'you lend, you borrow, you take back' which I have used to emphasize a story, and to engage the reader further, as the use of breaking it down into 3 steps makes it sound very easy and do-able.
• I have shown an example of the next issue, which is about whether or not 6th formers should wear casual or smart attire. This involves everyone in 6th form as the results of this debate could determine what they have to wear, therefore it engages the reader as it affects them.

I also used wors processor to create my contents page. My images were manipulated using the picture formatting tool. I used the basic shapes menu to create the stars and text boxes.I used a word processor to make the mini magazine too, print screened it, and then cropped it to fit in word for my contents page.