Evaluation

 

This is my final design for my magazine front cover. It looks like what I have planned on paper and my mock up layout so I am happy with the layout out of it. It keeps to the simple layout that attracts parents. We set out to make a front cover that is not too busy but includes the main norms of school front cover magazines. We took some of the feedback from our peer assessment task and changed the cover lines like our peers suggested. Instead of spreading them out across the bottom we compacted them together however I think that it didn’t quite work. The three cover lines that we included don’t really look as professional as I would have hoped. So if I was to do this again I would revert back to my main plan and have the cover lines spaced out separately at the bottom, which makes the magazine layout look more professional and easier to read as I feel the way the cover lines are displayed are at the moment is a little hard to read.

 

I am quite happy with the colour of the magazine; it keeps to the traditional Misbourne colours which are dark blue and white so this keeps to the norms of what I found in my format research. However, saying this a am a little disappointed with the background colour format. I visualised a dark blue background which then fades into white the further down the page you go but due to my lack of experience with Indesign was unable to do this professionally and to a high standard. In this case, a target I must set myself is that I must brush up and practise on my Indesign skills which will enhance the performance of the final magazine.

 

I am very happy with the images that I have used. I think that they are very effective and simple. The main image gives a clear view on the message that I am trying to put across through the front cover of the magazine. The main image portrays a calm and relaxed view of the school, displaying three sixth form students having a chat with one another. This the message that we want to put across to our target audience, which are parents of the school, is a relaxed and happy environment where the students feel comfortable and stress-free. We do however want to imply that this is a hard working school who achieve high end results so we have included a picture of a student working hard in the cover photo underneath. As we want to emphasise that this school is friendly and show that everyone gets on we have included another cover photo of a student holding the door open for another student which I think works quite well. I think that this image shows respect and kindliness within the students of the school and this is the message we are definitely trying to put across in the front cover as it will imply to the parents that their children will be safe and happy at this school and also suggests to future parents that if they were to send their child to this school then they would feel comfortable and looked after by the older and other students as this image and the main image shows that the school is like one big community which is good for the purpose of the magazine. As with the other two cover images I feel that although they look pleasant and looks good on the front cover they aren’t quite relevant and I think we could of used more powerful images. The image of the huts for example doesn’t really mean anything to our audience. Yes it is a nice picture of the huts but none of our content I about the huts so maybe we could change it to an exam results picture as that is one of our cover lines and would be more relevant and meaningful to the target audience of our school magazine. Furthermore, the image of our swans next to the masthead is not really what I expected. It is a good picture and I am pleased that we decided to include it next to the masthead as it links to it but I am a little disappointed with the white background behind it. I think that it looks a bit out of place in front of the dark blue background and doesn’t really look that professional. However, if we were to remove the white background the swans which are dark blue will be lost in the dark blue background. Maybe to improve this though we could edit a white outline around the swans because I think that this would make it more effective and unmistakeably much more professional.

 

In conclusion, I am very happy with the final version of our magazine for The Misbourne School. I think that the simple layout makes it very professional and very effective for our target audience. I like most of the pictures used especially the main image but I would change a couple of the cover images as it would make it more relevant to our cover lines. The cover lines are probably the main thing I am not typically happy with and would definitely revert back to our old layout we had for our cover lines. I am very happy with the background and the masthead, I have no problems with the masthead, but as mentioned I think we could of faded the background more into white but I don’t think that matters too much it is just a little extra detail. So overall, I am happy with my first attempt of making a school magazine but it could definitely be improved to make it look more professional.