- Using DTP and an image manipulation programme, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.
The Main Image:
- First of all, my groups main idea for our image on the front cover was to have a student shaking hands with our head teacher Mrs Manning because they had received exceptional results in their GCSE's. We decided against this because we thought it would be more relevant to years 10-13 as those are the years which take important exams.
- After re-thinking the first idea, we thought that the main image should be relevant to all years (year 7-13) so we thought about doing something to do with our school cantine because everyone has used the cantine throughout their school experience. We came up with the idea that the school cantine had been refurbished as we thought we could come up with loads of ideas and have a really creative front cover. We also thought that we would say that the money to buy the new kitchen had been raised by the students in the school so that everyone would want to see how the money they have raised has been used.
- With our idea set, we started off by thinking of ways we could make the image really creative and we thought we would have someone cutting a red ribbon to show that the cantine is now open and ready for all students to use.
Creating the Image:
- First of all we tried to find red ribbon but unfortunately there were not any around school so we decided to make our own out of red fabric. We cut a strip out of the red fabric and folded it over so that it would be the approximate width of a piece of ribbon.
- After cutting our fabric, we went to the cantine with a camera and scissors and got one of the dinner ladies to pretend to cut the ribbon whilst we took a photo.
Naming the Magazine:
- After we were happy with the main image and its positioning, we began thinking about a name for our magazine. We looked on the internet for similar school magazines and the names that had been given to them. We then went on a band name generator using 'Hitchin Girls' as the main words. The generator gave us loads of ideas but we liked 'To Hitchin Girls' and 'From Hitchin Girls'. After a few minutes we decided that we like 'From Hitchin Girls' better as it seemed formal yet casual at the same time to show that it was professional but also fun at the same time.
Font and Design of Masthead:
- Now that we had come up with the name for our magazine, we went onto Word 2007 and used WordArt to see which different styles looked best for our magazine.
- Our first experiment was with WordArt Style 3 which was curved upwards. We liked this one because it would go round the head of the main image.
- After experimenting with different WordArt styles, we thought that the masthead would look better with three ellipses on the end to show that the masthead is the beginning of the magazine. We also decided that we liked WordArt Style 3 the best out of all that we tried because it looked the best on the page as it went around the main image's head. We also chose the font for the masthead with it being 'Freehand 575' as it looked professional and also fancy and in the style of how hand written letters are perceived (written with a calligraphy pen) but it wasn't so fancy that it was not legible.
Adding Text to the Front Cover:
- With our main image on the page and the masthead name and design complete, we now had to come up with puff's that would appear on the front cover to attract the attention of the students to make them pick up the magazine and read it.
- Our first puff we decided to create was the puff to link with the main image about how the cantine had been refurbished. We made this puff bigger than the rest because this was the main focus of this edition of our magazine.
Changes:
- When we got back to the classroom, we were asked to evaluate ours and other people's magazines. With ours, we decided that we should add some more text to the front because it looked a bit empty with just a main image, a masthead and some text.
- Also we were asked to take a look at the brief and realised that the image we had taken wasn't a medium close up, more infact a medium shot, so we had to rethink on how the image would fit on the page without looking too stretched.
- Other things we decided to add were the school logo to show that it was particular to our school and also an edition number so that if you collected them, you would be able to put them in order and also if you looked at the magazine you could tell whether or not you had read the magazine before.
Making the Changes:
- Once the image was cropped, we stretched it the full length of the page but found it was too stretched and pixelated. We then decided that we would go back to the cantine to take more pictures to show what the 'new' cantine looked liked. So we went to the cantine and took photos of students using the new equipment. Below are the photos we took.
Adding more Changes:
- As mentioned before, we said that we needed to add more text to the front cover so we came up with another two puffs.
- After the main puff was aimed at all years, we decided to add a puff that related to older years and a puff that related to younger years.
- Our second puff that we created was to do with the school disco for years 7 and 8, telling them that it was now time to hand in their forms to make sure that they had a chance of getting a ticket. We wanted to have something catchy as the tagline so we came up with 'Its disco time kids!'
- Our third puff that we did was related to A Level students on how to cope with stress during sixth form. For this puff, we came up with the tagline of 'Turn that frown upside down' which is cheesy but funny and will make you want to read the magazine because of the same humorous language.
- Also we said that we were going to add in an issue date so keeping with the same font we wrote 'October Issue 2010' in the same font but in a different colour and we placed it underneath the masthead in smaller sized writing.
- In the top right hand corner, we decided to add an email address in which readers could contact us as the editors to tell us things that we could change or give us ideas of what sorts of things to put into our magazine for the next week.
- Here is the image of our final cover for our preliminary task.
Contents Page:
- For our contents page we decided to use the images we had taken previously so that we could still show off our new cantine so that it will make people look at the magazine if they can see different pictures of the cantine.
- We kept the same font for 'Contents Page...' so that it would be our house style. Also we decided to keep the three elipses so that it would be a common thing throughout the magazine.
- Below is our contents page. We decided to go with a plain background so that we could have bright colours on top to make the writing stand out.
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