Contents Page ideas

 I have found a number of magazine contents pages from a variety of magazines so that I can get an idea of how some of the most popular magazines lay out their contents pages. I found that a lot of these contents pages use a number of pictures which help the reader to feel a lot more interested and i personally felt that by just looking at these pictures I wanted to continue reading the magazines so find out more. I think that I will possibly use about 5 pictures on my contents page to make my readers feel interested, especially as I only used 1 on my front cover. It also seems that a lot of these contents pages have used bold fonts for the page numbers which I find very effective.  A major thing that each of these have in common is that each topic has its own heading, and is all together in one section of the magazine, this is a great idea as it helps things to be much easier to find in the magazine and it also helps to break up the contents page.

Front Cover final draft

I decided to change my original plan for my front cover as I felt that with two pictures on the cover, along with the masthead, banners and story lines it seemed too busy. Which is why I chose to have just the one main picture. I chose to keep my front cover quite simple as I think it loks much more effective and is not too busy that it is hard to read. I also managed to stick to my colour scheme of Red, White and Black, and found that by alternating colours of the story line headings it was much easier to read and the colours stood out from the picture. I liked this picture as it related to the story lines of 'forthcoming events' and 'Rounsfell Dinner'- which is something that will be appealing to fifth and sixth formers. My picture seemed happy and colourful which I felt would be useful when advertising this magazine to my audience.

Front cover 1st draft

 

This is my first and second draft of my front cover. In the first draft I applied my colour scheme of black, white and red, however I found that by having a white background It made it look quite boring and plain. Which is why I decided to swap the colours around and have a black background with white and red writing on that. I found that it made the red S's stand out more,which was my intention by having them in different colours. However in my next draft I may try having my main picture as the background, but am worried it may make it look too busy.

I have tried to use as many front cover magazine factors on my own cover as possible, including a masthead, banner, cover line and a main picture. I chose this picture because I wanted it to feel inviting and friendly which I feel is important if trying to sell a magazine. The font I have used is in serif, as many of the other magazines I looked at were, however it also looks attractive and would be found enticing by young people, who are my target audience.

In my next few drafts I will maybe put some more pictures on the cover and add one or two more cover lines. I also feel I need to mention something about the Rajko concert as that was one of the main topics people wanted to hear about in my magazine.

"Sheb's Sixth Sense"

"SHEB'S SIXTH SENSE"

I have decided to call my magazine 'Sheb's Sixth Sense' As I would like to aim it  mainly at the sixth form and fifth form. Also from my results collected from my questionnaire I have decided the following things; my magazine will cost £1.75, I have decided on this amount because from the results in my questionnaire most people said that the maximum they would be willing to pay is £1,50- £2.00. Also most people said that they would like to see a new magazine published every week. Then finally my colour scheme is going to be; white, black and red. I have chosen these colours not only because of my questionnaire, but also from doing a number of layouts with the desired colour schemes, I have discovered that although black, red and yellow are the school colours I feel that by using white, it will make my magazine much more appealing to people through the school.

Front cover plan

From most of the magazines i have looked at i have found that they lay their magazines out in a similar way to my plan above. I think that it would look more professional if i laid my magazines front cover out like that. I intend to have my magazines name across the top, with a banner along the bottom and a few small cover lines to make the readers be interested in my magazine.

Masthead font ideas

From nearly all of the magazine front covers I have looked at, the mast heads are written in serif. Therefore I have looked at a number of different fonts which use serif, and from that will choose the font that I think will look best on my front cover. I really like the second font because i think it stands out the best, however this is because it is in bold, which I could edit to any of the other fonts. I also like the first and third font as I think they are the most magazine and newspaper like. I need to transfer each of these fonts to my front cover and see which one looks best with my main image and cover lines.

Different magazine front covers

I decided to look at a variety of different front covers to get more ideas on how I should layout my magazine. By looking at magazines aimed at lots of different types of people I now have more ideas on who my magazine should be aimed at and how I should lay it out to make it most appealing. Each magazine seems to have one main masthead with a large picture in the middle. There is usually small cover lines and banners to help persuade the readers into buying their magazines. This is how I will layout my own magazine front cover.

Annotated magazine front cover

I have annotated this front cover from the magazine 'Grazia' using technical terms to help my understanding of how a front cover is layed out and how the use of each technical term helps to interest the reader, also it has helped my learning of each term. By doing this I have now got a better understanding on how I should layout my own front cover and what would be appealing to my own readers.

Results to Question 5

Reaults to question 4

Results to Question 3

Results to Question 2

Results to Question 1

Questionnaire

I have sent out a questionnaire to 50 students around the school because I wanted to get an idea what they would be interested in reading in a magazine and if they would be willing to purchase it. Results to follow.

1. What would you like the magazine to be about?
2. Would you be willing to buy the magazine?
3. What is the limit you would spend on the magazine?
4. How often would you like to see a new magazine published?
5. What colour scheme would you like to see on the front cover?