Preliminary Task - Completed and Evaluation

I feel that my preliminary task turned out not to be the worst, and somehow arrived neater than I had expected. But the question is, is it good enough? The main task looks hard. Considering the amount of things which could be considered in a school magazine, thinking about concentrating on the whole of the music industry is surprisingly scary in my mind. During the course of the preliminary task, I feel that I worked terribly slow, so obviously I need to plan out a lot more first and spend a lot more time on my main task ahead of me. There will be many more things to take into account. My school magazine front cover can be engaging in ways such as encouraging students to get involved. There are also revision tips mentioned, which could be a reason for them to like the magazine, in ways that they could improve their grades. My final results are as shown:

Preliminary Task - Planning

Title Ideas

I came up with a few title ideas and asked some people their opinions on what they thought of using each title from a magazine cover. A few people said that one of my titles, 6th Suite sounded a bit girly. I finally used the idea of alliteration by using W W for my title. This could stand for Wilmington Wahoo or something similar.

Image Ideas

At the same time, I thought of some ideas of what images to take for the idea of the front cover on our preliminary magazine. I came up with these possible places and backgrounds to take the picture:

• Lessons which are creative such as Art, Music, Science, Technology, Media, School Sports, ICT/Computing.
• 6th form Study room - Student signing up for an event
  
• 6th form Common room
  
• Assembly
• Clubs
• Sports (Field, Running track, Long jump, Football etc...)
• Events
• Evan's Building (The new building) - With scenary
• School noticeboard
• Corridor - With kids rushing into class or people walking back and forwards.
  
• Kids walking into the front of the school
• Kids in groups of friends at break or lunchtime
• Choir
• Computer room / Lower library
• Teacher opening school front door, welcoming people in.

I figured that using pictures which consisted of these ideas would not be too plain or boring as they include movement. I took pictures including the front of the school and some of the sorts of classrooms, reaching about 100+ pictures and eventually decided on choosing a 6th former signing up for a 6th form 'Help Out' event. I chose a friend of mine and asked him politely to pose looking towards the camera and holding the pen on a piece of paper, pretending to sign it. I took a few pictures of him in medium close up.

Front Cover Features and Headlines


I started to think of ideas for what could be presented on the front cover of my magazine, as storys or headings to make it sound exciting. I took the following into consideration:

• Student interviews
• Revision tips or guides
• Events
• Sports
• Extras
• Strapline
  

This wasn't easy. I had to take in to consideration the colors and had to evaluate why I would use it and justify every decision i make, as with the title. As with the colours, I had to justify the text I used with the use of language and make it sound like it is actually on a magazine.

Preliminary Task - Brief

This is the brief that we were given at the beginning of the year to use for our preliminary task:

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.