Research and Planning

In this section I will document the research and planning process.  Firstly, I am going to research the codes and conventions of magazines in order to create a realistic magazine, I must understand what they look like and what the audience would expect to see. There is a specific design type that I must follow in order to create a realistic product. 

De constructing 4 school magazine covers and their contents pages

Firstly I will annotate four existing school magazine front covers and their contents pages in order to identify the codes and conventions used in each.

Mock up front cover and contents page

The following images are of my mock up front cover and contents page designed for my magazine using Photoshop.

I analysed my cover page to highlight the media codes and conventions used in it's production.

As well as this I analysed my contents page to once again highlight the media codes and conventions used in it's design.

Linguistic Analysis

My cover page can definitely be improved as certain important features aren't used as much as they could be. An example of this is that there is only one declarative sell line on the front cover. Declaratives are strong attraction features of magazines so by having very few it causes someone who is not interested in the only declarative to instantly not want to read on as there is nothing that interests them specifically. My front cover also doesn't feature a rhetorical question which makes it less appealing because it does not ask a question of the reader. My contents page only has one sub heading, I could improve this by adding sports section and an academic section. To make my magazine better I must add these important sell lines so that it is more appealing and attractive.

Target Audience

The audience for my media product will be Catholic secondary school children. This is a relevant target audience as Catholic secondary school children are currently in attendance at the school my magazine is being produced for therefore it is specific to them. My magazine will also target an even wider audience of parents, teachers, school governors and the local community as the information contained within the magazine will also be of interest to them.

Questionnaire

I have also included a questionnaire in my planning and research so I could find out the opinions of my target audience. I distributed my questionnaire to my form group which consists of people all ages.

I could make my questionnaire easier to distribute by placing all the questions onto one sheet.

Analysis of my questionnaire

I chose to hand my questionnaire out to my form group which consists of males and females from year 7 up to the top end of 6th form in year 13 and my tutors. I decided upon these people because they represent the different age ranges and genders in the school that I am trying to target with my magazine, my target audience. As well as this they currently go the school so by gathering information from them it would help me to produce an appealing school magazine which interests all students. Below are images of the results of my questionnaire along with my analysis of them. The following images are my findings.

20 people took my questionnaire

This tells me the gender of people who took my questionnaire in turn showing me demographics throughout the questionnaire.

This shows me the different age ranges that answered my questionnaire in turn showing me demographics throughout the questionnaire.

Analysis

Through producing a questionnaire and analysing the results I have been able to make decisions upon the different features of my mock up school magazine. As a high number of people opted for sport as there preferred magazine genre I will try to implement school sport news and events into the magazine in order to make the content relevant. Although the same number of students opted for music I believe that sports news is a bigger area with more content to cover than music at my school. I will try to use students for the central image of my front cover as that was chosen as what they would be most attracted to as the the cover of a school magazine. I have been able to decide upon my title and my font choice for my magazine as I now understand the importance of bold mastheads and text for the reader, as it clearly stands out and makes it easier to read which is highlighted in how font 3 was the most popular text type in the questionnaire. I will make the print version of my magazine my priority as that was the format which appealed most to my target audience and thus most accessible however it does not mean there cannot be an online version of my magazine of which would increase it's accessibility for others. The questionnaire results have also assisted me in choosing my magazine title which is going to be isley's monthly mock up (the most popular amongst the target audience). Finally I have been able to choose my front cover image as a picture of 5 students was chosen by the majority of people, coinciding with the expectation that students should feature on the front cover of a school magazine. The analysis of my questionnaire results has been imperative in deciding upon which features to choose for my mock up magazine and it has further improved my all round knowledge of the essential codes and conventions of a media product.