Moodboard Discussion

Making the Mood board was extremely straight forward. A mood board is a type of collage which consists of images and text in a composition of choice. Designers and others use mood boards to develop their design concepts and to communicate to other members of the design team. They are used by artists and are based on a particular theme of their choice too.

Of course the theme of my mood board was my chosen genre for my magazine pages, which is rock. I basically accumulated pictures of things that remind me of rock. I added in a lot of artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and also images with text on them with band's logos on them; AC/DC, Led Zeppelin.

It was really fun looking up and deciding what images to use and it was great to design it and I consider myself quite creative so with these sort of tasks I always put in 110%

Moodboard

Moodboard

This will give me inspiration when making the magazine, showing me colour schemes, photos to take and also the content I should put in my magazine

Textual Analysis of Magazine Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread

Real Magazines

On this page I will analyse real rock music magazines showing conventions, colour schemes, layouts which will help me produce a better product.

Mindmap For Chosen Genre

Mindmap

After reasearching the genres, I have chosen Rock. The mindmap below shows certain ideas and conventions I should use.

Researching Magazine Genres

Researching Magazine Genres

Now I have created my school magazine I need to start the main task. First i have to research my chosen genres and choose something I feel the most comfortable with when making the music magazine.

School Magazine Evaluation

My magazine pages follow the simplistic conventions that are commonly found in school magazines. For example in school magazines you rarely find expert editing as it is all managed by the students. I wanted to keep it this way and I didn't want to over complicate things. I kept it as simple as I possibly could because I didn't want to break away from the norm too much. In my magazine pages I have stripped it all back and everything there is appealing. It features of the main building in school with a fade effect. I did think this was an effective feature for me to have. This was the only feature I implemented which doesn't follow the classic conventions because normally the main images are meant to be in your face, I took a risked and I'm sure it didn't back fire because my text boxes were black and my title etc, the contrast of the two colours are very easy on the eye in my opinion.

Obviously my pages are targeted at people around the school; students, teachers, governors and parents. I had to consider the target audience in every decision I made. This is why I made it so simple to read because younger students will be reading it but also older people such as parents will be reading my product so I thought to keep things plain and simple so that people on both ends of the age spectrum would find simple to comprehend. In a way I followed conventions by not making things over complicated but I also didn't follow conventions for that exact reason. Before constructing my pages I analysed a school magazine page myself in order to get to grips with what I should have included. The magazine I chose to analyse was really complex, there was a lot going on at the same time and me as the reader found it very difficult to follow. There were many colours featured as opposed to the two colours I chose for my pages. I think the way I attracted my target audience with the simple yet effective features I included such as text boxes, font size, the fade effect.


The cover especially is really clean I think there's nothing silly going on and nothing on the pages that ruin the overall presentation with the pages. My cover star is presented as the head boy of the school so I felt it was important to present him stereo-typically. I think that helped a lot. He is tall, takes pride in his appearance and the costume is presented as an immaculate uniform. I do think that helps a lot because if he is the head boy that reflects to the whole of the school. I had to present that when picking my model for my cover and it had to be a positive representation and I felt that it was. Photoshop for me wasn't a problem, I had no worries using it because I had previously used it for other assignments and I gained a lot of experience and used it for my pages. Photography was my only worry because I wasn't sure which type of shots to use and at what angles and how it would be so effective but in the end I just decided to do research and find out what was best for me and what choice I'd decide to take. Layout, text, lighting and colour scheme wasn't an issue for me at all because I knew exactly what I wanted to do after looking around at professional magazines and how I could gain inspiration from them. My only problems when doing this task was that my concentration levels were really bad and my time management skills where atrocious. But my main priority is to get all that fixed up for the main task.

School Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page

Final Copy of School Magazine

With all of the research and planning completed for the preliminary task, I have created these two pages.

This is the front page. As you can see I have followed many conventions and also my analysis of a school magazine has also helped me to create this page

The contents page is simple, but effective. The main colour scheme of my magazine was black and grey.

School Magazine Draft Sketches

School Magazine Photos

Photos for my magazine

These photos were created after making the sketches of the magazine. The sketches gave me a clearer view of what to take meaning I had good time management for this task

This photo will be used to demonstrate a 'model' student at work, enjoying the sunshine. The pose may suggest that he is exaggerating for the picture although it could also show that he is really interested in his studies. 

Another 'model' student is featuring in this photo who is enjoying the wonderful facilities that the school offers to its student. We can't really see facial expressions due to the camera angle but what we can see is a slight smile, also revealing that he has positive emotions on his work.

This photo shows a classic building at the school. This is the main building in the school where the senior teachers have their offices and meetings. As well as that, other rooms are in this building such as reception and the staff room. The school are very proud to have such a historical building as the core of the school.

This photo shows a fantastic and well kempt green area were students are allowed to sit down in the sun and study. It is a quiet area and also a feature the school are proud to show off and offer to their students in free time.

This photo also shows a student enjoying the facilities available at his school. It is evident from the photo that this isn't using his free time to study but to let off a bit of steam and he is letting out his creative side. It is clear that staff have no problems with this due to the isolation in the room, he is allowed to go in and have a bit of relaxation time.

Textual Analysis Of School Magazine Cover

Textual analysis of school magazine cover

Before I create my school magazine, I have to analyse it, so I can follow certain conventions to get the best possible product. I have used this magazine as I am hoping to recreate this for my own school.