Magazine Contents Mock-Up

This is my rough hand drawn plan for my Contents page of my school magazine:



My idea for the image was to have it as a notepad with a pen. I chose to do this because it fits in with the school theme - it's something you associate loosely with schools. I also chose the text to look kind of handwritten for the same reason. The titles of the articles I want to be orange; it fits with the front page's colour scheme.
The type of things advertised I thought about, what kind of things would a school magazine have in it?
I made a list of some of the things:

- After school activities
- Gossip page
- Local news
- Jobs available (Sixth Formers?)
- Canteen meals
- School news
- Brainteasers
- Out of school activities
- Horoscopes
- Agony Aunt page
- "Cringe' page
- Interviews with chosen teachers
- Upcoming Trips
- Reviews of other trips
- A Year photo page - each year group
- Exam and Revision tips

So these things, I would narrow down to the best ideas and put them on my contents page in the style that fit.

Cover Image

Here is a slideshow made in Photobucket of possible images for my front cover.

This is my chosen image:


I chose this image because I think it looks the most professional. From magazines that I looked at, the cover image was usually neutral and calm unless they deliberately made it different. I think this one is the right length and angle; gives the best space for articles around it and I simply like it better than the others.

Magazine Cover Mock-Up

This is a drawn up plan of my magazine front cover:



My chosen colour scheme is yellow, orange, brown and black. I chose these colours because they are neutral, but still eye-catching. I thought it would be the sort of colours a school would choose for its magazine.
The title "Chenny D" is in the "Bernard MT Condensed" font in the Word Art application and is a brown to yellow faded design. The "Photography Residential" subtitle is also in word art in a brown crumpled design also in the "Bernard MT Condensed" font. Looking at other magazine covers I decided to put a banner along the bottom of my piece with advertisements on it.
I want to put an 'Agony Aunt' image in the bottom right corner, which I can edit using Photoshop so that it fits in properly.

Analysis of "Woman" Magazine

This is the second magazine I looked at when researching for my front cover.
It is called "Woman" magazine.



Advertising Description: "Woman" is a must-have weekly fix of hot celebrity news, juicy TV insider gossip, compelling real life stories and body confident fashion and beauty. It's lifestyle section offers brilliant ideas on home and interiors, the latest product news and user-friendly advice. Woman is first for food too with healthy family friendly menu ideas.

Editor: Jackie Hatton
Publisher: IPC Media
Publishing Director: Oswin Grady
Website:
Frequency: Weekly
Circulation: 331,065 (ABC Jan-Jun 09)
Readership: 682,000 (NRS Jan-Jun 09)
Launch Date: 1937
Median Age: 47
Target Market: Busy mums and housewives, aged between 25 and 54

This magazines layout is also very similar week after week, which brings me to the conclusion that the editors keep the basic style for each issue and change only a few things each time. A large main photo is normally situated to the right of the page, but actually covers the entire magazine - articles and such are pasted over the top. The name "woman" is at the top of the photo but underneath her head, which makes it look like it all fits in comfortably. The articles are surrounded my box's placed in seemingly random angles at the left hand side of the page. A strip at the top of the cover is used as another advertisement of an inside article as well as a circle in the top right showing a competition deal of some sort. The colour scheme of the magazine uses more colours than the other magazine I researched; it uses pink, yellow, purple and white with a bit of black text. This looks good as firstly they are quite feminine colours which would attract their target audience as well as that being so colourful would also help in catching viewers eyes. 7 images are used on this issues cover, which is the same as the amount used in "Woman's Own" magazine. If very few images were used I think the magazine wouldn't be quite so attractive, as they help to advertise the articles presented.

Analysis of "Woman's Own" Magazine

This is one of the magazines I researched for my own front cover.
It is called "Woman's Own".



Advertising Description:
Woman's Own is one of the best loved weeklies for women who know how to enjoy life, are fun-loving, confident and whatever their age, feel ten years younger. It delivers a weekly mix of news, views, celebrity gossip and intriguing real life. It's smart, surprising and straight talking.

Editor: Karen Livermore
Publishers: IPC Media
Publishing Director: Sandy Gale
Website:
Second Website:
Frequency: Weekly
Cost: 90p
Circulation: 307,407 (ABC Jan-Jun 09)
Readership: 947,000 (NRS Jan-Jun 09)
Launch Date: 1932
Target Market: Busy mothers and housewives aged between 25 and 54

The layout for this magazine is similar each week. Its main image is placed to the right of the page usually split in half for the purpose of showing two different people or scenes, or even the same person in different states. The main article advertised always relates to the image and is in the largest font so as to immediately attract attention. The name "Woman's Own" is spread across the top of the page, under more adverts but above the image, slightly underneath it so as not to chop part of it off. A strip of adverts is placed at the very top and bottom of the page,advertising the contents of the magazine and some competition deals and the from other issues I have seen, another advert is shown in a rectangle or box on the left hand side of the page, normally body issues related. A colour scheme of pink. yellow, white and a bit of black is used on this issue and it works really well, joining each section together. This issue uses a total of seven images at varying sizes to fit into the layout, all slotting easily into the advertising boxes. This, I think was done well as, even if text is layed over the top, or even the image spills into something else, like the bottom article "Pauls holiday nightmare" it still looks really proffessional.

Introduction

We have been told that we have to make a music magazine for our coursework folder; The Front cover, the contents and a double-page spread. To Practice for this, we made our own school magazine cover first. To start off we looked at different genres of magazines that we could buy in the shops. Looking at these we got a good idea of the general layout of a magazine and how they use color schemes and images to create a polished look. I will scan some of the issues I looked at, into the next blog - I was looking at magazines targeted at middle-aged woman.