School Magazine- Evaluation

My finalised school magazine, ‘Latest At Oasis’ shows the vital conventions that all school magazines should have. As a masthead are the magazine logo, it has a huge impact on sales as a result of this I insured my masthead was bold and noticeable, by doing this I met the conventions of a school magazine. My main image was a close-up shot of a female; I edited the picture using Photoshop, I used Photoshop so that I could remove any flaws in order to make my main image look professional. My aim for doing this was to make my front cover eye-catching. I got feedback from both my teacher and peers; I listened to all the feedback and acted accordingly. As a result of this it showed me different features and techniques I could use to draw people in.

By looking at other school magazines, I copied the media conventions shown such as images, layout, font and content. My magazine is similar to other school magazines as my images was placed in the centre of the front cover and was surrounded by selling and cover lines as well as puffs. By following these conventions of a school magazine it hugely helps getting the consumers attention.

My media product represents particular social groups as my magazine’s target audience is 12-16 year olds of both genders. Due to the target audience my school magazine consists of articles that students can relate too. In order to interest my readers my school magazine also contains quizzes and games. By the information I have gotten from my questionnaire, I analysed my results and acted accordingly. As Oasis has young footballers who play for Crystal Palace a potential image for my school magazine was a palace player warming up as it will attract students who are interested in football.

Bauer, it might distribute my media product as it has over 300 magazines in 15 countries. Also because the brands that Bauer institute have a wide range of target audience, as well as having online, TV and radio stations.

Another reason as to why I’m using Bauer is because it’s a paid circulation which means that the magazine is sold to readers for a price, either on a per-issue basis or by subscription, where an annual fee or monthly price is paid and issues are sent by post to readers. As a result of this my magazine will make me a profit which will allow me to continue my magazine.

Bauer media joined Bauer media group (Europe’s largest private publishing group) in 2008 and the group employees 64,000 people and has a 2008 turnover of 2.08 billion euros. Bauer media has a span of over 80 influential brand names, which cover a diverse range of interests. Their most successful brand names are ‘Heat’, ‘Match’, ‘4music’, ‘Kerrang!’ and ‘CAR’.

Bauer Consumer Media in the United Kingdom publishes ‘Kerrang!’ which is a rock/ metal music magazine. The name of the magazine is onomatopoeic and refers to the sound made by an electric guitar when playing a power chord. The audience (target group) for ‘Kerrang!’ is individually minded, independent of thought and musically experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty. There are many Platforms that ‘Kerrang!’ operate on, such as: magazine, radio, and TV, Website and ‘Kerrang!’ awards.

Media language is the multiple ways in which the media communicates with their audience. There are 5 different types of media communication approaches; visual, written, verbal, aural and non-verbal. My front cover and content page both contain media languages; I have contained media languages by the camera angles and shots I used. On my front cover, my main image is a medium close up of a smartly dressed school girl. I did this so that my main image represented what my school magazine is about without having to look at the masthead or cover lines.

Whilst designing my school magazine, I have learnt and development many skills in Photoshop. The skills I have learnt and developed in Photoshop are how to abolish any flaws, to use liquefy and how to alter backgrounds as well as learning how to add layers and change the brightness and contrast of an image. During my preliminary task I gained the knowledge on how to create a front page and content page, make questionnaires and also how to make an effective plan and follow the plan in order to create a school magazine. Through knowing my target audience before creating my magazine I knew the kind of magazine I had to create in order to attract my target audience. I acted accordingly to the target audience I was trying to attract by the colour scheme I chose and the pictures.