An evaluation of a school magazine I did for AS Media

1. How does your school/college magazine and/or music magazine relate to existing examples of these
media forms?
My school magazine contains the most important conventions that all magazines use. For example, it has a Masthead, a
Headline and Lead picture that relates to the Lead story. The Headline has an Anchorage, and there is a Banner on the
bottom of the front page, containing additional information.
What Conventions have you observed in terms of:
Design
Like professional magazines, my school magazine contains a Masthead, Banners and Box-outs. This gives my magazine a
universal layout to abide by when designing it. The contents page also contains an index or sorts, so people can see which
page each story is on.
Mode of Address
My magazine has many forms of address that are commonplace in professional magazines. For example, my school
magazine contains a Lead story on the front page, with a Headline, with an Anchorage explaining the story in more detail. My
magazine also contains Leads of the other stories the magazine will discuss.
Use of Imagery
The front page of my magazine contains a large Lead image of the school’s Agora. Superimposed on this is an image of the
school art exhibition, which relates to the Lead story. In the contents page, multiple images of the school are used, to
showcase the variety of facilities and subjects available to the students.
How did you approach the two tasks individually and in groups?
The magazine was done entirely individually as I was not part of a group. This project itself was done in the form of two tasks:
the research side, and the construction side. Prior to the actual construction of the magazine, I had no actual plan for it.
Because of this, I did extensive research beforehand, finding out which fonts, colours, content, etc. that people at my school
would want to see in a magazine. I then used this information to create three Mastheads and a rough template for my
magazine. One this was done, I got to work actually creating my magazine. I used the template to create the outline and
layout, and from there I improvised a bit until I got the magazine to how it is now.

2. How did you manage time, yourself, equipment and other resources?
I did not have that much to manage during the production of the magazine. The majority of the production was done on a
computer with no prior organisation of other resources. Time was one of the few things I did have to manage, however, but this
was done simply. I just used my Time in lesson and also my free time in school to complete the magazine. Pictures used in the
magazine were also managed by making a dedicated subfolder in my Media folder to store them for easy access.
Can you provide examples of creative problem-solving decisions you had to make?
While in the process of planning my magazine, I needed to take pictures that would be featured in it. However, I did not have
the time during the school day to go around the school and take pictures. I remembered though that my mp3 player had a
camera, and by staying in school after the school day ended, I was able to walk around the school and take pictures without
otherwise wasting time I could have otherwise used planning or creating the magazine.
How did you manage locations for photographs and any costumes and props?
To manage the locations for photographs, I made a list of places and things around the school to take a pictures of. I loosely
used this list when I walked around the school, taking photos. Luckily for me, it was Arts week at the time, and the Art’s
department’s exhibits were on display in C Pod. This proved to be very helpful, as many of the images I took were used in my
finished magazine.
Reflect on the importance of design drafting and how the final outcome relates to the draft layout in
each case.
Making a draft of the magazine was an incredibly important and helpful thing I did, as it gave me a structure to abide by when
creating my final draft. I created my draft by comparing real magazines and recognising themes in them, such as them all
having a Masthead or a Lead story. I then applied these into my fist draft. My finalised magazine’s layout contained the overall
structure of my first draft, such as the Masthead using up the top ¼ of the cover page, as well as there being a Box-out on the
left side, a Banner on the bottom, and the Lead image, Headline and Anchorage being on the right side of the page. This also
applies to the contents page, where the overall layout remains relatively the same.

3. How did you manage your time, and with what success?
I managed my time for my school magazine by just doing as much as I could do in the time I had. Both in lesson and during
private study I chipped away at the work, getting a considerable amount of it done each time. By doing this, I was able to finish
my magazine in a fair amount of time before deadline, which gave me some time to make more changes and little
improvements to it.
Can you provide examples of desk-top publishing (DTP) technology allowing you to do things that
extended your creative control
I used Adobe Photoshop to create my school magazine. Prior to this task, I had never used the program before, so it was a bit
of a challenge to create the magazine. For me, the various ‘Effects’ the program offered were of great help in making my
magazine more creative and interesting to look at. For example, on my magazine cover page, I superimposed an image of
artwork over a picture of the school’s agora. This meant that I could use the agora image as a default background image for
every page and also have an image for the Lead story on the front page. I also used these Effects in both the front and cover
pages to create Box-outs. By changing the Opacity of the Box-outs, I was able to make them ‘solid’ enough to still clearly see
the writing in them, while still making the school agora background picture visible.
Can you provide examples of DTP technology obstructing or limiting the creative process?
While Photoshop gave me the opportunity to create a creative magazine, there were some limitations that I encountered. For
instance, I found the layering system to be tricky to use in the beginning. I frequently made mistakes, and often made
unnecessary layers a which just made things more confusing for me. Another example would be the complexity of the less
basic actions. I feel that they could be displayed and carried out in a way that beginners could understand easier.

4. Throughout the two activities you would have been making creative decisions based on ideas you
were developing about your readers
Where did these ideas come from?
The various ideas I used included the different fonts, the colours I used, and the Masthead. All of these ideas were presented,
in some form or another, in surveys I got my friends and classmates to fill out. Based on the results, I chose the fonts, colours
and the Masthead that people voted for the most.
Did audience feedback confirm expectations or generate surprise?
Following the completion of the magazine, several classmates assessed my work. One thing that people liked was the
Masthead I created for the magazine. I was surprised at this, as I thought the Masthead was relatively basic compared to
everyone else's. Another thing that people commented positively on was how creative the front page was, and how the main
picture looked. For this, I kind of expected this, as I spent a lot of time making the front page look perfect. However, the one
thing that everyone said I needed to improve on was the choice of colour for the fonts. I was not surprised in this at all, as I
struggled to balance the colours between the colours people voted for in my surveys, and the colour of the magazine itself. By
far the biggest thing that surprised me, however, was that my magazine was voted by my fellow classmates as the best. I found
this very shocking, as I had never used Photoshop before this assignment, and I though many of my classmates magazines
looked much better than mine.