Evaluation of School Magazine

In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms of real media products?

  I have produced, finished and come to terms with my new school magazine "GRADE". I firstly came up with various ideas for my front cover and contents page and took them into account by drawing rough sketches of my work and producing several power-point presentations were my ideas were revealed. I had to think about images I wanted to use, a colour scheme, font, cover-lines and layout. From these ideas, I created my contents and front cover on to media technology programmes. To add to this, I took several images which I thought would be relevant for my magazine as well as my featured cover-lines and articles. 

• My school magazine is related to the codes and conventions of a real media product in many ways. Firstly, one of the most important codes and conventions on a front cover is having a main image which will attract the target audience. My school magazine follows this idea as I have used a medium close-up image which is the probably the most used angle and shot in real magazines. Furthermore, I would say that my featured cover-lines challenge conventions of a real media product because I have used the same font, size and colour which is usually a disadvantage for a magazine as this makes it seem plain and simple which the target audience wouldn't find attractive. However, real media products such as gossip magazines such as "Closer" or "Now" tend to have many cover-lines which demonstrate different types of font,size and colour. This makes the magazine stand out for the target audience and makes them want to get a closer look of what the magazine contains. Another aspect which I think I have followed for my magazine is the title, bar-code issue number and date. Usually, the title on a magazine is the largest text on the page. Without this convention, the target audience may not have a clear understanding of the name of the magazine and this could perhaps make them not want to buy it. In my magazine, I have ensured that the title is the largest text on the page so that the target audience can recognize it easily. For the bar-code  I have made sure that it appears on the front of my magazine and not on the back because this would be affecting the advertisement and it may cause several issues. Additionally, like real magazines such as "Q" I have included the issue date and number. This gives the target audience an insight on when the magazine was released and what number issue it is. This code and convention is important because if for example; there was an issue with the magazine, the target audience can easily recognize what issue it is and hopefully their questions and opinions can be answered and taken into account.