The magazine front cover i have produced conforms to the codes and conventions that are generally associated with magazine covers. The cover has a masthead that boldly presents the name of the magazine. The main image of the cover is the edited image of the school building. The photo was edited using Adobe Illustrator by creating a live trace and editing the threshold so that photo of the building was traced accurately. Another image of a student is used on the left hand side, this is associated with one of the coverlines on the cover. The name of the magazine is effective because it has come from the name of the school and can easily be associated with the school itself.
The magazine I have made represents the students, parents and other interested adults well because it has a sophisticated look that will be appreciated by the target audience. The front cover is not cluttered so it is not hard to understand or displeasing to read, this particularly appealing to the younger generation as it does not require them to read large quantities of writing. The font i have used is very original and adds an aged look to the magazine cover that can be associated with the age of the school itself.
The magazine would be distributed by a local media institution or by the school itself. This is due to the specifics of the target audience, the magazine would be distributed to the school itself, other schools and others who have placed specific orders. The magazine would be distributed to other schools so that students at primary school can look at the opportunities at the school and influence their choice of secondary school.
The target audience for my project are students, parents and past students from the school. The magazine will have content on recent and upcoming events within the school thus appealing to the students currently at the school, and those who have left and are still intent on the successes of the school. The front cover of the magazine will have a sophisticated look, with the main image being an edited photo of the schools main building. This will appeal to older generations as it exploits the attractiveness of the architecture but it will still maintain a youthful aspect as the background for the image will be a bright colour.The combination of the bright colours and main image of the school building will attract the students as well as the older generation, the content will also do this as it will contain information on events and successes for the students and information on school life and other general information for older generations. The front cover will also feature a photo of a student from the school and will furthermore attract students and parents as they may know the student and this will make them want to find out more about what is in the magazine.
I attracted the audience by using specific fonts and colours that would relate to the audience. The main background of the image is a bright blue that fades to white in the top half of the magazine cover, this adds definition to the main image of the school building. The use of yellow and black in the masthead is relevant as they are the colours of the school uniform thus adding more links between the magazine cover and the school itself. The image of the student on the left hand side has been emphasised using a gradient feather so that it almost "fades into" the cover. The boldness of the main image attracts the older generation whereas the coverlines would attract the students due to the relevance they have in their school life.
From this project i have learnt the many codes and conventions of magazine covers and how they relate to the target audiences of magazines. Previous knowledge of Adobe Photoshop helped to produce a more effective magazine, a combination of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign CS3 were used to reach the final product. During the project I also learnt how to layout pages more effectively and create a better workflow when using the software stated.
