Evaluation of the school magazine and contents page I created.

1. Evaluation
There are many ways in which my media product uses conventions of a real
school magazine, both included in my cover page and contents page. A main
way in which I conformed to magazines on the cover page, was by creating a
large and clear masthead, named '6form' to connote text language in youth,
this followed inb order to stand out to the to the audience.The main coverline
on my school magazine, being a pun about the new sixth formers, is the
second biggest text on the page, following the codes and conventions, and is
situated on one specific side to stand out from the other two coverlines. I
included another two cover coverlines. On top of this I also used a large main
image, of a school student, which also conforms to the codes and conventions
as it is the largest part of the cover page, and the main subject is using direct
address, giving the audience a feeling of personal address. On the contents
page, I have used a plethora of images that link to the articles and features,
which also links to the codes and conventions. As well as a fully listed list of
both feature and regular articles, using numbers to specify them, like most
other magazines.
In order to create the cover page, I used the media software Adobe
Photoshop, which was rather clear and simple to use the main features
including the cropping tool and text tool. I had to manipulate the main image
on the cover page in order to achieve a full cover page, which I did by
cropping and enlarging the image. I also used the application to create
proffessional looking text, specifically including the masthead, which I was
able to put a range of different tools on to create my optimum design. This
included bevel and shadow. The strengths of my overall cover page would be
that I feel it fits many codes and conventions of a real magazine cover,
however I do feel there needed to contain more coverlines, rather than just the
three. In addition I feel I could have picked a more eye catching colour
scheme for the front cover, to ensure more people would get enticed into
buying the magazine. In terms of using the technology that is Adobe
Photoshop, I feel it has many advantages including the fact that their of many
facitlities in order to make a magazine look proffessional, including photo
editing. I also feel the layout of the application is a lot easier to veiw than
Quark. However the proccess in importing an image and having to crop it in
order to place onto the magazine seemed unneccesarily lengthy.
For the contents page, I used a considerably harder software called Quark,
which is designed just for the creation of pages and rather complex in its
features. The software enabled me to firstly insert columns in which I inserted
the titles of my articles, which made it look like a conventional magazine. I
then added a set of threwe images, one alike with the front cover, to show
continuity. The overall strengths of my contents page include the fact that I
have included a range of articles that a specifically numbered. However I do
feel the contents page does not look as proffessional as it potentially could,

2. due to the random placing of images and the use of the same colour scheme.
The strengths of Quark include the many potential features to use to create
great and clear magazine pages, including a selection of colour tools and
scaling image tool. However, it has some limitations, as it is somewhat difficult
to identify which tool is which. Overall, I felt it was much easier to use Adobe
Photoshop.