Production Diary

Evaluation of The Stag Magazine

This is my front cover I made for my preliminary task. I decided to make the name of my magazine unique and one that will stand out however I decided to replace the ‘A’ with the Haydon stag as this makes the cover  relative to the purpose of the magazine and so that the reader can tell straight away what the genre of my magazine is based on. The masthead is based at the top of the magazine (as is my contents page) so that the reader can clearly tell what particular chapters of the magazine are about. I kept the masthead in a simple but serif font so that the target audience have no difficulties reading it but it still maintains a level of professionalism.

 

Beside the masthead I included a button with the price of my magazine, as this is a necessity for any magazine. It is written boldly so that it is clear to the reader. This is must have information when producing any genre magazine as the audience always want to know the price of the product that they have an interest in. I used the colour red so that the button would stand out on my front cover as it goes against the predominant colour scheme of my front cover.

 

Most of the text included on the front page have been made sure that they have been kept to the house style of the magazine (only using blues and yellows). Sticking to a house style is vital for professionalism, and can become synonymous with your product or magazine, resulting in loyal clientele.

 

On the front cover of 'The Stag' I decided to include a main bleed (main image) that takes up the majority of the page. The image illustrates a student on school grounds, relaying a cheeky styled pose of which I referred to as being stereotypical ‘Drama Queens’ attitude.

 

This is my contents page for my magazine ‘The Stag’. Firstly I placed the masthead at the very top of the page so that it strikes the audience’s attention along with the Schools emblem ‘The Stag’ (where the name for my magazine originates from), as I aim for the masthead to be the first thing readers see, I can infer that this will thus give them a direct understanding as to what they can expect to find.

I also decided to do a double page spread, as by doing this I felt that the information portrayed will be clear to read. However doing this has left lots of gaps and open spaces, of which ultimately makes my contents page look basic and simplistic in comparison to my cover page.

Furthermore I could have included more photographs in order to add meaning and understanding the text presented on the page. Once more the lack of graphics also adds to the simplicity of my contents page, as I could have changed the colour, font or size of the numbers to make it more professional.

Production Diary

Analysis of Previous Work

AS Media Studies G321: Analysis of previous work from BrettMooreG321

Preliminary Design Ideas

I decided to being my preparations, by thinking of a name for my magazine. I knew it was integral to be as original as possible in doing so, and primarily focusing on this would provide me with a basis as to how I wished to present my magazine, e.g. the formality and context.

My name ideas included;

• Haydonews
• St Mary'stag
• The Haydon Stag
• The Stag
• Evening Stag

After much deliberation I finally decided to use 'The Stag' as I felt it was the most contemporary name, and would be most suitable relative to my target audience of students at the school.

After selecting my magazines name, I now began to design a front cover for said magazine, taking into consideration the predominate use of my mid-shot as well as introducing other stories (potentially using other photographs). During this process I had to redesign my front cover many times however I finally decided on the following;

 

The simplicity of this design will be beneficial to me because it provides me with a base to begin my final piece however it also gives me the freedom to be able to build on this and make my front cover more professional.

Finally we were tasked with designing a contents page for our magazines. Here I have decided to use a two page spread, allowing me to utilize all the photographs taken on sight, as well as presenting a clear layout, that is easy to read and to follow.

My main colour scheme throughout my magazine are, white, yellow and blue, as these are the protagonist colours of the school.

Production Diary

         The introduction to AS Media studies included a discussion about types of software available to us and the course expectations. The main focus at the beginning of the course was to collate a variety of photographs from around the school grounds. These will be influential in a later task. One necessity was that each class member included a mid-shot within their galleries, without this we would not be able to meet the criteria of the task. After all photo's were collected and uploaded onto the system it was time to begin with preparations for the main task in our AS Media studies introduction. This was to, design both the front cover and the contents page for, a Haydon school magazine.