First draft of my Contents Page

This is my first draft at my contents page. I tried to stick to my original plan by which I do not make it look too busy. I tried to kept it quite simple- but by doing this think that it may look slightly boring. To make it seem more attractive I think I need to add some more colour into it- possibly my other main colour which is red, and could also maybe add in another picture.

 Another thing I did not do was add in the two banners along the top and down the left hand side, I think that by doing this it will show a link between my contents page and front cover.

 I have chosen to put my main cover lines in Italics which helps to differentiate between the cover lines and explanation text. 

Finally with my pictures I tried to use pictures that relate to the cover lines- For example, where i have spoken about sporting fixtures, I put a sporting picture in next to it, then when I said Exclusive pictures of the Rajko concert, i have put a small picture in which is aimed to make my audience want to carry on looking.

Contents page- Rough idea

Annotated contents page

I have annotated this contents page in preparation for creating my own contents page, for my school magazine. I researched the layout and the techincal terms of a magazine, having learnt these terms I will be able to create my own contents page, which also links with my front cover- using the same colour scheme and fonts for example.

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"