Evaluation of Preliminary Task

Cover
Front cover
For my front cover, I close to use the same house style that our school uses; yellow and navy blue. Both colours contrast to eachother and are both secondary colours, and stand out amongst eachother hence attracting the audience. The font I used is quite a fun, quirky and unprofessional font; reflecting on the youth of the audience as it's not a serious magazine and it is more made for entertainment purposes. Both fonts for the masthead are quite fun and the colours follow the house style of the whole magazine.

Full bleed
For the full bleed image, I selected a photo of a young girl smiling and giving the audience eye contact (direct mode of address) to again, attract the audience in. It is a close up shot which reflects her youth, also foreshadowing the youth of the magazine as it is mainly targeted towards students.

Coverlines
I then created the coverlines, which fit smoothly around the young girl, to make her stand out more. The main coverline is about her therefore it is the boldest headline, which again, follows the colour scheme of the magazine. I also used a pull-quote from this article to give the audience a glimpse of what the article includes. For the prom article, I used a circle shape as it attracts more attention and the yellow signifies it's imporance; it is a happy colour therefore I put it at the top of the magazine as it will be one of the main things that the students will be interested in seeing. For the smaller articles, I included photos with borders that follow the colour scheme to make them stand out amongst the more significant articles, however I didn't want to overpower the main articles so I kept it small. The text I used for the coverlines is plain so that the masthead and other features stand out more.

Strapline
For the strapline, I used the navy blue colour as it is darker and will make the yellow font more bold. I included the Haydon Magazine social interaction websites (Twitter and the official website) so that the audience can feel as though they have a more personal connection to the magazine.

Contents page
For the contents page, I again followed the colour scheme that the front cover uses. I featured a welcome message as well as a Headmasters note so that the audience constantly feel in loop. I used a big navy box for the page information to fit inside with yellow text on top; I used this because the contrasting colours really stand out amongst the bland, white background and attract full attention from the readers. The font is quite plain compared to the title of the page, and I did this so that the other features would stand out more. I also included a photo of a happy student to reinfornce the mood of the audience as well as a photo of the school to make the contents page look more interesting. For the background which goes around the box, I used the Haydon stag logo in various sizes and angles to make the page look fun and not too boring.

To improve
To improve my magazine, I could have done many things differently, such as:

• Including social networking and logos for the social networks used.
• Using images that are not blurry.
• Using images that are taken with a more professional camera, not a smartphone.
• Using a more professional font for the masthead.
• Using a more professional colour scheme, or maybe not sticking to it too much.
• Not using more than 2 fonts.
• Using a strapline at the top of the front cover as well as at the bottom.
• Carefully wrapping the text around the images.
• Not making the text too big.
• Not overdoing the use of the stag so much, maybe using it once or twice and not several times all over the contents page.
• Using columns.

To summarise, I think that I made my preliminary magazine quite well however by changing small things I could have made it better, however this is how I will improve when I create more magazines in the future.