Evaluation of School Magazine

To produce our School magazine we had to follow the codes and conventions of magazines, the codes I followed were; using the barcode at the bottom right hand corner of the page, Having the masthead at the top of the page and having no writing covering the front cover stars face. I also used a consistent colour scheme and a vary of font and font sizes, that were not too different or that varied too much.

We used a variety of new technology and new media software when producing the magazine itself. This was a new experience for me, as i have not taken media before. Firstly we had to use high-tech cameras to take high-resolution pictures, which we could then manipulate to produce the desired effect. I enjoyed taking the photographs, as it is something I am interested in doing therefore I would say it is one if my strengths from this project, and I enjoyed learning about the different shot types. We used Photoshop to do this, which was a good way to manipulate the photos and produce a good front cover image for our magazines, Photoshop was fairly easy to use when I got used to it, therefore id say that this is something I could improve my skill on for the next part of the course. My front cover turned out well as I cropped the image, added a gradient background, and inserted text into the Photoshop file. I think I could have improved my cover lines by adding sub-lines, and added more detail onto the masthead, I could have also added buzz words, and editded the colours so they fitted together more.

We used Quark XPress to make our contents pages. I found this very difficult as I had troubles with the software itsself, and I found it hard to understand some of the procedures that were involved on the software, so I would say Quark XPress was one of my weaknesses, we used Quark to make the contents page, I decided to Change my initial ideas as my opinion of the simplicity of the layout changed whilst in production. I decided to put images down the central columns of the page, where I thought the readers eyes would be drawn to the images, and therefore the regulars are on the left hand side above the main story image, and the feature stories are on the right hand column. I decided to keep the background plain, and using different colored image and text to make the page aesthetically pleasing.

To improve my skills I will attempt to produce small tester products on the equipment, to enhance my skill.