*Homework*

For our homework assignment we had to analyse a school magazine of our choice, carefully thinking about the target audience and how the magazine attracts this target audience with the choice of images, the language used, the fonts and headings used and the layout of the magazine, I decided to look at the Mark Hall magazine, last published September 2008, generally celebrating GCSE results, here is a link to the magazine:

http://www.markhall.essex.sch.uk/About/NewslettSep2008.pdf

The audience the magazine is aimed at will vary from pupils to staff to parents of pupils and any potential pupils. This is a very hard target audience to include in one magazine, but the magazine pulls it off rather well. The newsletter uses clever headings that will instantly draw readers, such as 'outstanding achievements' and 'Glorious Firsts' these headings appeal to the whole target audience, as it will draw pupils that want to hear about their year and school friends, it will draw the members of staff as it was them who aided the pupils to achieve these 'glorious firsts.' It will appeal to potential pupils as they would want a taste of the academic ability of the school they are about to join.

The magazine is dominated by stories of pupils taking part in certain activities from all over the school, this again will attract the majority of the target audience, as the pupils will like to know they are getting recognized for their achievments, the parents like to see photos of their kids in 'medieval gear' (as featured in this issue.) There are also articles that will appeal to other members of the target audience, such as the new headteacher being appointed. The language used in these articles are clear and consice, it seems to be a neutral language, this is achieved be not including words of a too high volcabulary (so the pupils cannot enjoy it) and not of a low volcabulary (so the parents will get bored and lose interest.)

The images used are probably the most pivotal device for attracting the target audience, this is due to the fact the images feature the pupils, and as with the news stories about the pupils the whole target audience would like to see the images, the images feature pupils at the prom and pupils recieving their GCSE results, this will attract the pupils that have just left, as it will let them remember the times when they were still in school. There is a good balance of articles and images for both the younger and older students. The older students tend to dominate newsletters, as they normally have more going on, so other newsletters will feature them more than the younger pupils, but Mark Hall take this into consideration and equal out the space so both sets of pupils will feel welcome to read the newsletter.

When pitching to such a large target audience the font can be tricky to master, as if it is aimed at the younger members of the target audience then it might be too informal for the older audience, and if it is too formal and aimed at the older audience the younger audience may find it difficult to enjoy. This battle of the target audience is shown as there is only a consistent font used in the articles themselves, the headings have varied fonts, some formal, some imformal. The headings font seems to change when the audience of the particular article changes, an example is the story reporting on the new headteacher and the articles about the friends of mark hall (both stories appealing to the older audience such as staff) the headings for these articles are in a more formal font than the stories that involve the pupils, the headings for these articles appears to be comic sans.

In conclusion the mark hall magazine has a wide target audience it must appeal to, and it does this by including stories and images that will attract members of their target audience, this results in the audience not reading every article,only articles they feel are aimed at them, this is shortcoming of the magazine and it's technique of trying to appeal to such a large audience, however the majority of the target audience are represented well in the magazine.

Lesson 03.

Today's lesson was split into two parts, the first involved a basic tutorial around the photo editing software photoshop, this was crucial due to the fact we will have to use photoshop for both our preliminary task and our main task.

The photoshop tutorial was really helpful, as Mark not only showed the class the technical aspects and how to work photoshop (such as saving layers, and using effects and enhacments) he also told us some of the do's and dont's when it comes to images, such as the golden rule of thinking about what effect we were aiming to achieve with out photos, the example he used was if when making our school magazine it would not give a good impression to outside readers if the student in the medium closeup had a scruffy tie, this example showed us that our inital photo is very important, if we take a bad photo, all the editing in the world won't change the fact it is a bad photo.

In the second half of the lesson we recieved the front covers of two university magazines, one was the QUAD, this was for post graduate students from Queen mary's university of London, the other was called Newsmans, and was created for under graduates studying at the university of Birmingham. The target audience hugely differed, as the post graduates would be more mature, and this showed in the fonts, pictures and the layouts of each magazine. The QUAD had more of a blocky and sensible font, this shows that an older and more sensible audience has been targeted, the pictures show older people, at work, all the pictures show people in smart dress, as if they hold high positions. This would be relevant to post graduates, as those recieveing the magazine would either be in those positions, or would be aspiring to be in this postision. Also featured was a picture of a class of graduated students, with full robes on, this will bring back memories for the post graduates, and will instantly draw them to read the magazine, post graduates would want to read articles about recently graduated students, as they can relate from their experiences at university.
It is clear Newsmans was aimed at younger audience, as there is a less formal font, it seems to be comic sans. The pictures also show younger people. One of the images that is taking up majority of space is of money going in to a piggy bank, this rather surreal image holds a lot of importance as typically undergraduates are cash strapped and the image generally brings forth thoughts of saving, this is a big hint to under graduates, as generally they lack the ability to save money. The contents is clearly appealing to undergraduates, as it features 'coping with university finances.' The colour of light blue for the writing is also less formal than the black and white theme used for the QUAD.

Lesson 02.

In thursday's lesson we were set an independent task, in which we had to draw a mock up for our front covers, our group decided to go for a constant theme of having a st. marks tie running around the outside of the page, the font of the 'The Saint's Observer' was also the same throughout the three front covers.
We were given 40 minutes to complete the task, this time limit was pivotal in our learning in this lesson, as it taught us all that planning is crucial, as my group did not have a great plan, and our covers ended up being rushed.
This lesson also showed us that the front cover for our magazines can not just be thrown together in a matter of minutes without thought, the whole group had to put great thought and deliberation into every little detail of the cover, such as whether having news or a picture to dominate the majority of space on the cover.

Lesson 01.

Today we started our process work, thinking of a simple pitch for our school magazine. It really helped developed our understandings of the little details that we must include in our reports and write ups, like the production cost of our magazine, the fact their would have to be a list of staff needed, especially to censor certain views or opinions for the opinion section of the magazine.

Generally it did help however, as it helped get many ideas from different people, all of which could be put in our preliminary and main tasks.

P.S. Why do the best ideas come to your head after you finished your own pitch lol