By looking at ‘The Bishopbriggs Academy Magazine’ I was able to look at the conventions used in an existing school magazine. I was then able to use some of these conventions on my own magazine and it also helped to know what sorts of features are usually seen on a school magazine.
On the top right hand corner of ‘The Bishopbriggs Academy Magazine’ there are three circles all the same size, these circles continued on every page linking it all together. I decided to use this idea on my magazine as I liked how it made the magazine fit together. I used 3 small squares on the top left hand corner of both my front cover and contents page. ‘The Bishopbriggs Academy Magazine’ has a very minimalist front cover and contents page. Both have a plain white background and use a simple tri colour scheme of blue, grey and white. I decided to use a plain colour scheme in my magazine as I think it looks effective. I did not use a plain white background like the one in ‘The Bishopbriggs Academy Magazine’ on my front cover as I didn’t think it looked exciting nor grabbed your attention – although, I did use it for my contents page. On ‘The Bishopbriggs Academy Magazine’ they used a uniformed list to show what was in their magazine on their contents page. I liked this way and thought it was easy to read and showed the titles clearly, therefore I decided to use this layout on my contents page. ‘The Bishopbriggs Academy Magazine’ also had a brief description of what each page was about under its title in italics on their contents page. I thought this idea was simple yet effective and showed the reader a quick explanation of what could be found on each page. I used this idea on my contents page as I think the layout is easy to read and understand. I have put the name of my magazine in the bottom right hand corner next to the page number on my contents page. ‘The Bishopbriggs Academy Magazine’ uses this idea but on the bottom left hand side. I like this feature as I think it looks very professional and a lot of established well-known magazines do this, which reminds you of what magazine you are reading on each page.
Through producing my school magazine I have learnt many new skills.
Firstly, I have learnt how to use an SLR Camera. I’ve learnt features such as focusing the camera and how to zoom as well as changing the aperture and shutter speed. I was able to the skills I learnt about aperture when I came to take my photo for my front cover. I changed the aperture so that the model was in focus but the background was not.
For all of the photos I have included in my school magazine I used natural light. I took the photos in the day time and it already quite light areas so artificial lights were not needed. The flash on the camera helped the look of the photos too.
I have also developed my skills on Photoshop throughout this project. I had basic Photoshop skills before I started making my front cover and contents page but I have learnt many more advanced skills through doing so. Some of the skills I used while creating my front cover and contents page were merging and linking layers. I merged the layers when doing the 3 squares in the top left hand corner of each page. This meant that they became one layer instead of 3 which was good when I was trying to get them in the right place as it meant they were all in the right position and moved as one piece. Another tool I used was the colour dropper tool. This tool lets you take a colour from either a picture or text already in use on your page and use it for something else. I used this tool to make sure I used the same shade of navy throughout my front cover and contents page.
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