3. Come up with a Name, headline, strapline and article ideas.

NAME:
The name I chose was "The Idsall telegraph" so that it could be shortened to "IT" - I did this so that the magazine would be more informal, and more likely to be read by the students that would be my target audience.


STRAPLINE-
This came after I thought of my magazine, and imdieatley I thought of using, "Have you got IT?"
it's short and catchy, and could be interpreted in different ways. A literal have you got 'IT' as in the Idsall Telegraph magazine.


After speaking to several people from the target audience (12-18) I received, all round positive comments on the name, and the strap line for the magazine. Comments included:

"I like the title, it's really catchy, and easy to remember, and I like the play on words in the strap line, it's clever"

"Its clever in how it can appeal to older students, with the Idsall telegraph, but still can be informal when shortened, something that younger students will like"

Article Ideas, I planed my article around photographs that I had either taken recently within school, or planned photo graphs specifically for the magazine. Here is an example of the photos that I used.

1. Taken in Iceland, on a school trip - Would be an ideal feature for the magazine.
2. Sports articles feature heavily most school magazines, planned photo, ideal for the magazine
3. Taken in London, this will relate to the school production of We Will Rock You.
4. Planned photograph, for the 'Agony Aunt' section.
5. Sixth Form at Christmas - as it is a sixth form special this would be ideal.
6. Again as it is targeted at Sixth former's this image shows students revising for exams.

2. Preliminary Sketches

Front Cover Sketch for Preliminary task 

1. Research into School Magazines.

I had a brief search online to have  a look at some different examples of School magazines, and I found that the magazines could generally fit into two categories. The first being overly formal magazines that looked more like brochures than something a student would be interested in, and secondly the more common school news related magazines. One thing that struck me about both of the examples below is that they are targeted at parents, which I think is something that I will steer away from in my own magazine. I think it would be more effective if it were to be aimed at students, rather than as a newsletter for parents. I think this way I will be able to receive feedback a lot easier, and I will also be able to design it to suit my own age range. I also think that in doing this my magazine cover will hopefully be more 'fun looking' 'action packed' as to attract the attention of a younger age range, and this will allow me to get more out of the software I am using in preparation for the main task, as the photos will need to be edited to suit, and it will also mean I can have a practice at manipulating fonts, logos, and colour schemes.

                                        

Planning for Preliminary Task.

Initial Plan.
1. Research school magazines, look at other examples for inspiration.
2. Draw up sketches for the layout of the front cover and contents page.
3. Come up with a name, and plan out headlines strap lines and suitable article ideas.
4. Design work- create a colour scheme and logo. Choose fonts.
5. Photos - Plan, choose 'models', take, edit.
6. Once the magazine cover and contents are completed, evaluate them.

Production Tips

In class we were given a list of prodcution tips by our teacher to help us with our preliminary and coursework task. The list given looked at key design principals.

1. Separate the most imporatnt asprct on the page from the rest.
2. Spend time cropping and resizing images.
3. Use clipping paths to work on an image but not the background.
4. Experiment with filtering and other effects to create impressions of motion of soften focus - only use an effect if it is essential.
5. Use a range of fonts and sizes. Most magazines tend to use two or three different fonts.
6. Remember to consider contrast between fonts and their purpose, for example one front would be used for titles and headings, and another for main text
7. Use a pyramid approach for margins.
8. Use DTP (desktop publisher) software guidelines to keep both text and images neatly arranged
9. Experiment with colour, Black on White, White on Black for contrast.