Preliminary Task - Contents Mock Up

Additional to the cover, a mock-up contents needs to be provided as part of the preliminary task. I chose to do this on Microsoft Publisher, using a similar technique as I did when I made my developed draft of my cover.
Initially, I had intended to do a very conventional layout, with just a straightforward list on the left, title at the top, editor letter on the right, but when I began making this it really just seemed to lack inspiration. I decided I wanted to create more of an interest with my contents, as I figured that after the cover, the contents will probably be the next thing the audience look at so it needed to make quite an impression. I then considered using the theme coloured blocks again, but in a different design.
I did think about making a star design with many lines, having chunkier ones for the main features, but I thought this might be a bit too over the top for a contents, so I toned it down into mismatched horizontal lines. I think this conveys the effect of movement to my audience, hopefully again fitting into my running theme of newness.
I've used a bold font for my "contents" title and main feature page numbers, to represent possibly using the same font as I did for my masthead on the cover.
The small editor letter I've included and the picture representative of the editorial team is just to give the magazine some identity, as I personally feel proving that real people are behind media products gives it more meaning and somehow makes it more relevant to real life, instead of being left with the assumption that faceless corporations are making things we're supposed to accept and believe.
So with finishing the preliminary task completely, I'm ready to move on to the main task, which I'm slightly apprehensive about at the minute!

Preliminary Task - Creation!

I started my creation by making the cover on Adobe Photoshop, leaving a gap for the photograph.
I began with the background, and trialled a couple of shades of grey before deciding on a light grey as to not draw attention away from my other background feature. I then created my star with 4 chunky blocks, and I also decided that by duplicating it and making it slightly more transparent, it can give a 3D effect which I hope will provide the connotation of the future and contemporary style to the reader, an idea that I've tried to encode in my whole cover. I think that the general design of the background is very abstract as I'd like to leave it unmotivated and open to interpretation, but possibly can be interpreted that our school provides colour to a grey day or that our new school is putting us on the map.
I then moved onto designing the masthead, which I started by browsing downloadable fonts on dafont.com to find the perfect font. I initially had the idea of a large pixel font which is a recognisable code connecting to the future, as this would allow me to instantly position the reader into thinking the magazine is looking into the future of the school. However I found these fonts didn't really stand out, so I opted for a bubble style font. This may suggest more of a retro theme, but I think the way I've warped it and the fact the "Pi" is a filled in bubble font, it does help it bring it up to date. I also think some students may find this font holds some of their personal identity, as a lot of kids use this style as decorative writing.
I then moved on to writing my cover lines. I chose a sans serif clean cut font, which happens to be incredibly similar to the Pepsi font. I think this may evoke a feeling of familiarity, even subconsciously, so that the reader feels as if they recognise the font and will therefore feel very comfortable with the magazine. If they fully notice what font it is, it helps that it's from current popular culture. For the language of my cover line, I mostly kept them the same as I initially planned, with a few slight changes, but it was my intention to use words that the students will be familiar with for the same reason as I chose recognisable fonts. "Colour in", "injection", "a/w 08" and "monky" are all things that might hold relevance to students surrounding both school life and their interests. I also applied cliches such as "An injection of colour", "School's not a fashion show" and "New -something-, new rules", because I hope it will help conform to conventions of other magazines my audience may read. I hope they don't take an oppositional position, where they believe the cliches don't work very well and so they find them cheesy and common. Most of my cover lines are for surveillance when applied to the uses and gratifications theory of Blulmer and Katz, as my own personal value is I believe that is the main reason for a school magazine.
I was then able to start work on my image. I first made the picture that I wanted my model student to hold in the photo. I had planned on making it look like a scientific evolution book or poster, but in order to stick to the deadline I felt I didn't have enough time to make this. Also I'm not sure it would have been very clear on the cover so I just settled for the second best option of a basic image on paper. I then printed this for my model to hold, but edited it later to make it more defined and obvious.
I took my photographs against a blank wall, so it would be easy to cutout later as I just wanted to have her against the background of the cover, hoping that it will be decoded as her not being in reality, but a future world. This is also why I chose to have faded copies of the photo piled up behind her to give it a virtual reality feel and to mimic the effect some video games use when characters move fast.
The expression and body language of my model is quite open, as she appears to be a friendly, normal student with no offensive features which would look hostile on the front cover of a magazine. However, this interpretation would depend hugely on what kind of student read it, as different stereotypes and social groups would receive it differently because of their individual circumstances, as according to the 1990s reception theory. I wanted her expression to intrigue and show confusion, hopefully to invite the readers into the magazine for everything to be explained and put right.
So after combining all these elements together and making some slight nudges to the layout, I finished my new school magazine cover.

Preliminary Task - Developed Draft

After gathering the results from my questionnaire, I made a mock up of my final cover using Microsoft Publisher incorporating the features decided on in my questionnaire. I used similar fonts that I plan on using (chunky sans serif fonts as I find them more youthful), but when it comes to making the final cover I will probably download specific fonts on dafont.com. I made a simple representative of my student, but didn't include any details on the organisation of the student as I will probably decide this on the day of taking my photograph. When it comes to the main task I realise I will have to plan the organisation of my model more, but for the purposes of this smaller task I'll just decide spontaneously. I used example cover lines, which I may use for my real cover but I may decide to alter them slightly, still in keeping with the same stories.

Preliminary Task- Audience research

As a way of gathering feedback from my target audience, I decided to carry out a questionnaire with a small sample of students from my media class. In the main task of this unit, I will consider my sample much more carefully to give me a more balanced view, from a selection of my target audience, depending on what kind of music magazine I choose to do. This small sample from my media class is only representative for one year of the school, and really I should have asked people form each year group to fill one in, but just for the purpose of this preliminary task I used a convenience sample.
I jotted down possible questions I'd like to ask in my questionnaire from what and how many cover lines to have, to the background of cover. When I typed my questionnaire up, I ended up using all these questions as I didn't have many and I figured all of them would give me valuable responses from my audience that I could use.
The results of my questionnaire are as follows;

1. Which name do you prefer? - Out of the 8 people I asked, 7 preferred Monky Pi to Habit. This confirms what I predicted previously, that Habit might not be suitable because the background behind would not be understood, and that Monky Pi would be liked because of the obvious personal connection it has to the students, as it uses their language to represent the school, therefore I will use Monky Pi as my name.


2. Which stories would you prefer to see in the magazine? - Out of new colourful uniforms, online reporting, school fashion, tips for sixth form, blackboards return and upcoming school events, uniforms, fashion and sixth form tips were the most popular but only by slightly. I think this question was fairly bias as tips for sixth form may not have been so popular had I used a sample from all the years in school, and I used colourful to describe the new uniforms, which could be interpreted as me showing my values to the reader and therefore influencing them. However, I will still use these stories on my magazine cover.


3. Which background do you prefer? - The choice was between the theme coloured stars, stripes of plain grey background. It was an even split between stars and stripes, so I have chosen to use the star as I think it will be easier to work around when creating my cover, and still show it clearly.


4. Should the student on the front be wearing uniform or non-uniform? - Again 7 out of 8 thought the student should be wearing uniform, which is a positive response, as hopefully it suggests students aren't ashamed of the uniform being associated with the school, however because all the sample I asked don't even wear uniform anymore, maybe the result isn't that valid.


5. How many stories should be advertised on the cover? - Out of 1,2,3,4,5 and 5+, 3 was the most popular suggesting my audience don't want the cover to be too busy or too empty, so hopefully 3 smaller cover lines along with my main cover line will fill the cover nicely.

I will take into account these responses as I go on to develop my cover further.

Preliminary Task - Rough Drafts

I created 3 mock-ups of potential magazine cover layouts, all incorporating different features. When it comes to deciding on which one to use, I'm including the 3 backgrounds into my questionnaire and will use the one which is most popular.
My first mock up uses chunky blocks of the theme colours to make a large star in the corner of the cover, the rest of the background being grey. It has a typical large masthead at the top, instantly making it look very conventional, and therefore recognisable and familiar to the audience. The rest of the layout is also very conventional and so coded like any other magazine, which is what I see as an advantage, as it would look like a real, credible magazine. It has the main cover line overlapping the photo of the student and smaller cover lines above the main one.
My second mock-up again uses the theme colours as a feature in the background, multiple coloured diagonal stripes through the center diagonal. On this cover, the masthead would be printed sideways up the edge of the magazine, as I think this gives a very contemporary feel. It is quite different to a conventional layout as the large photo will be at the top with all the cover lines at the bottom.
My third mock-up consists of a very abstract masthead feature. After designing the masthead, I'd create a print pattern of it in lines in alternate theme colours, which may remind the audience of popular clothing prints. Due to the busy masthead, I would have a plain grey background and would have to keep the rest of the magazine cover subtle so it doesn't look overloaded and messy. I think this may be difficult, therefore a disadvantage, and personally I prefer having the theme colours spread over the background of the cover.

Preliminary Task - Planning the cover

After I'd gathered a general idea of what my cover should include, I went onto plan it by drawing up a thought shower of my ideas. I separated it into 4 branches; Name, Colours, Stories/Cover lines and Photo.
For the name of my school magazine, I just wanted it to somehow connect to the name of my school "Monkseaton High School". Some of my basic ideas included MonkMag, The Kelley Times (as in Dr Kelley the head teacher) and ChunkyMonkey. I decided against these as I felt they didn't hold enough meaning to them and weren't encoded very well. Although MonkMag does include alliteration, I don't think it's very original, and with The Kelley Times, I think it could attract aberrant readings of being a newspaper which definitely would not be a message I would want to put out to students as it just wouldn't interest them at all as it may seem more like a publication for parents. ChunkyMonkey also seems to have more of a connotation to food, and some may associate it with the Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
Ideas that I developed after more time to think about it are Habit and Monky Pi. Habit is the name of the clothing monks used to wear, therefore tying it into "Monkseaton", and it would also imprint the idea of reading the magazine every time it came out, like a habit. However, I don't think students would understand monks wearing habits, so it may not be very suitable. Monky Pi I think would also be a good name, as "Monky" is an abbreviation for the name of our school which will be widely known among students but possibly not by outsiders, therefore a symbolic/arbitrary sign that has to be culturally learned and will most likely be interpreted in the preferred reading, unlike Habit. Also the signifier Pi has the two main signified meanings of mathematical pi, giving it an academic twist, as well pie the food, a word which has become a youth culture catchphrase among many courtesy of Weeble and Bob. I have not decided between these, so I will let my audience choose when I carry out my questionnaire
For the theme colours of this new school magazine, I took inspiration from the logo of Monkseaton High School's new image, as it incorporates many bright colours which I think would attract attention on a cover and again it would allow the magazine to link into the school's image. The colours I've chosen from the logo are sky blue, royal blue, hot pink, lime and grey. The design of the new logo has also given me an idea for the background of the cover, as I could manipulate splay of coloured blocks into a more youthful, chunky style to appeal more to students.
For the stories/cover lines I decided to focus on the value of information being new, as there are a lot of changes going on in school, so it felt suiting to reflect this in the respective school magazine. Because the development of the new school is such a big topic at the moment, I chose this as my main story, and came up with the cover line "Evolution of the Monky", again I tried to include an academic twist. "Evolution" also fits very well to my theme of new information. Other stories I came up include information about the new school uniform, where I could have a juvenile style cover line like "Colour in!" or "Dress Up!" in trying to appeal to the child in the students, reverting back to blackboards to save the environment where the song title "Back to Black" could be used and others like tips on being a new student or new school fashion. After deciding on my main story, I'll see which ones my target audience would prefer from the results of my questionnaire.
Photos I'd consider generally related to the stories I'd came up with, but as I decided on my main story quickly, I thought it would make sense to have my photograph relating to the new school story. Trying to carry on the educational theme, I plan to have a student looking confused over a scientific diagram of evolution which ends in a picture of the new school.

Preliminary Task- Research into existing covers

I began my research into existing school/college/university magazine covers by browsing Google Images for covers which fit the criteria of the one I would have to create, and some that were a bit different. I found 2 issues of Latino University magazine (September 2007 and November 2007) which were similar to what I needed to create, but also I found the Spring 2008 issue of the University of Waterloo magazine (Waterloo) which was quite unconventional of a university magazine. I decided to analyse it briefly as I thought it was a prime example of a modern magazine cover and to help me decide if an unconventional style would work.

Firstly I noticed the clear and simple font used all over the cover including the masthead, mostly in white, which gave it a very clean-cut feel as if it wasn’t trying to hide anything with gimmicky, over the top fonts. However, I thought this wasn’t necessary of a school magazine as because it was a university magazine, there was more pressure for it to look professional and academic. I personally thought it didn’t really appeal to students by using such a plain font, therefore I decided to use a more attractive font on my own cover, plus high school students are younger than university students and would probably appreciate a more unusual font.

In the cover lines there are a lot of references to academia, like “academic”, “maths” and “history”, which again I thought wouldn’t really appeal to a student if they were reading it for leisure means. However it would advertise the school well and possibly manipulate students to be more academic.

The whole cover of the magazine is a drawing, in a very individual crosshatch style, which gives it a contemporary feel, yet still conservative. The actual drawing involves a magpie on top of some books surrounded by a lot of metal objects which the magpie has assumedly collected. This again adds to the academic feel as it suggests a visual metaphor for a student succeeding in university (like the magpie is on top of the chemistry and engineering books), and then making money (the magpie collecting shiny objects). On the other hand, this is a risky picture to use, as although what has been encoded has a clever meaning behind it, it could easily make an aberrant reading when the reader doesn't understand the use of a magpie, therefore causing confusion and uncomfortableness. This shows that it is a loosely motivated sign, so would have countless amounts of opinions and connotations to different people. This makes me want to use a much more motivated picture, with less interpretations and more anchorage.

After analysing this rather different cover, I decided to stick to a typical style of cover as I think it would be much more effective in a high school and attract the attention of many more students.In class, we analysed 2 more university magazine covers, Concordia University Magazine and Angelo State University Magazine to broaden our knowledge of what we should be doing on our cover.

Preliminary Task - Organisation

Before I started any work on the main music magazine task, I focused my attention on making a mini project out of the preliminary school magazine task. It needed to include using DTP and image manipulation programme to produce the cover of this new school magazine, which had to feature a photograph of a student in medium close-up, a masthead and appropriately laid-out text. Also a mock-up of the layout of the contents had to be made to establish my skills of DTP.
I organised a list of tasks to breakdown the stages of work I had to do;

1. Research into existing covers
2. Planning the cover
3. Rough drafts
4. Audience research
5. Developed draft
6. Create final magazine
7. Take photograph
8. Combine everything to finish

I went ahead to follow this plan to make sure I finished the task by the deadline.