Evaluation of the preliminary Exercise

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a school magazine?

One way my product uses the conventions of a school magazine cover are that is creates a professional look to it. This is a convention that would give effect as when it is looking professional more of the target audience will find it appealing. The covers typography is one of the main features that make it look professional as it looks very similar to the typography used in the schools logo. This means that if someone were to see the logo and the typography on the cover then they would see that it is used to give effect to show it is the schools magazine.

My school magazine cover develops conventions by using an image. For example instead of using a solid block colour that will not give off a very good effect the background used would be a picture. This picture helps fill out dead space and most importantly makes it looks more professional this would develop the convention that is image. This is important because it has to stand out over other school magazines.

A way in which my school magazine challenges different forms of conventions would be that it uses 'the hook' this is where the cover uses some sort of line or phrase that will make the audience think in a number of different ways. This will challenge the conventions of the magazine as 'the hook' may not work in some areas and also it wasn't used on any of the school magazines I looked at before. This will be decided on a peer review on whether or not it works.

2. How effective is the front page of your magazine in focusing on the ethos of the school?

My front cover is very good at focusing on the ethos of the school. This is because the school aims to get good grades for all pupils at Biddulph and so on my front cover the student is pointing up using 'the hook' effect as it says students aim for the highest this year. Also the school website uses many pictures of students on there to show both the uniform and some of the pupils. This has also been used on my magazine cover using a student to give the effect that it looks a lot more like the actually magazine would be. The school also uses the motto which is 'pride, dignity and respect. It also says on the website the schools vision,this is 'The process of education we seek to develop the attitudes, knowledge skills and qualities necessary for each pupil to lead a meaningful, successful and productive life'. My magazine uses the motto effectively as it shows the student on the cover has pride to show she is aiming for the highest. It also shows respect as it is 'the article by students for students' this means that people can have their say and the school will respect it. My magazine uses the vision of the school as it says the students are aiming for the highest this year.This is effective as it is focusing on the ethos.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

From my audiences' feedback who are my peers I have learnt much more about the strengths and weaknesses of my preliminary product. Some of these strengths are that there is a medium close up this is effective because you can see the action of the student and also it shows a surrounding of the school. One weakness of my preliminary cover would be that the pose of the student is unprofessional as my peers pointed out that she had her phone in her hand and also her uniform wasn't to a good standard. One other strength would be that the typography that is used is suit for purpose as it looks like the schools logos font. One final weakness would be that the bar code attracts to much attention to it as it doesn't blend in with the background. This is not good because the people who look at the magazine will look at the bar code first which will shows it cannot be the most important part. 

 4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? (Write about using fireworks / adobe Photo shop etc. and explain what you have learnt about constructing a cover / contents page.)

I used different media technlogys in the process on the cover and contens page as i used different programs such as fireworks and photoshop. These were somtimes complicated to use however after a few lessons I could use them efficiently. One of the things that was new to me was the new fireworks CS6 as i was used to the normal 2004 version so this was a problem I had to face. I learnt to constuct my cover much better with photoshop thanks to the different effect that it provides.