Finished product: Magazine cover and contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My model signed a note saying they don't mind being used in my magazine.

questionnaire data analysis

9 people answered my questionnaire as well as this a few people did my blog poll which helped have some input on the decision of my theme.

(This is the original questionnaire )

 

 Firstly I wanted to see if people were interested in a school magazine. I was surprised to find people would be interested in a school magazine as long as it was done with a high quality.

I asked the people how often they would like a school magazine published, this would help me work out what type of name I should use for my magazine and what sort of things i should include in it. Most people wanted a weekly magazines, which made me think that the magazine would have to feature more updates on what is going on in the school and updates on managing student life. Whereas in an annual magazine is may just have updates on the school as a whole and would feature more on large school events rather than weekly updates.

Another factor to look at was price. Many people would pay less for a school magazine in fact the majority (67%) said they would pay somewhere inbetween 0-50p. This is understandable as many students may not have the extra funds to pay for a school magazine. However using my secondary research I realised many magazines that where of lower price often had connotations of being 'cheap looking'. To compensate for this I decided to not have the price of my magazine at the front as having a puff with "50p" written on the front may make the magazine look cheap and unappealing.

I also wanted to decide on a colour palette for my magazine, I saw many magazines that used bright colours however after doing my primary research the results showed that 56% of the people I asked preferred pale colours. I asked them what sort of pale colours separately and most said they prefer colours such as pale blue and white. 

Another big thing I saw when researching magazines was the fact many of them advertised free prizes and competitions on the cover. This can be a device used to attract more readers and it is commonly used when making magazines for younger people. When I asked if the people interviewed would ever buy a magazine because of the competitions the majority said it depended on what kind of competition it was, advertising competitions is suitable for a school environment where there may be lots of fairs and events where competitions are held. Similarly I asked the people interviewed if they ever bought a magazine because of the free prize, 45% said no with a close 33% saying yes. After giving it thought I decided against the idea of a free prize as in a comprehensive school making a magazine that is of a good quality and has a free prize with each copy is not possible as we don't have that sort of high budget. 

picture one (from questionnaire)

picture two (from blog poll)

Picture one is the pie chart from my poll showing the majority of people preferred a back to school theme which would have articles mainly on going back to school and getting used to the school routine, however on my poll the majority of people preferred a christmas themed magazine which was also backed up by the fact that 22% of people on the questionnaire preffering a christmas themed magazine. After taking all of this into consideration I decided to continue with a back to school themed magazine as I believe i would make a better magazine using that as my theme.

 

 Lastly I wanted to know what drew people attention when looking at magazines. Overall a large percentage (89%) said that the main image attracted them more to the magazine whereas the cover lines or text on the front cover. This gave me a clear indication that the magazine cover had to have an image that stands out so it can draw the audiences attention.

Typography

Typeography is the design and style of a font. The font look as well as spacing and overall image of the font is taken into account when making a typeface. Typography has become a big thing in mass communication and ised used in various types of broadcasting.
The main types of typography in terms of modern fonts are: serif font and sans serif font.

Serif typeface: i.e 'Times new Roman'
Serif typefaces are fonts which usually have have a stroke at the end of each letter or nurmerical unit. Serif typeface has been used for as early as the 14th century and usually makes a media text look older or more dramatic or "gothic". Serif texts are usually printed as they are much easier to read on paper than on a computer screen.


Sans Serif: i.e 'Arial'
Sans serifs fonts are usually look less hand written and do not have the flicks at the end of letters and symbols. This often makes them look more simplistic which also makes it easier to read on screen. Sans serif is a popular tpyeface because it was originally used to draw ephasis on words ebcause of the darker appearence in letters.

Evaluation
I think I will use a mixture of both Serif and Sans serif fonts to create some contrast in my magazine which will make it look more interesting whereas using all one font which may make it look boring. Using a variety of fonts will draw readers to different sections of the cover furthermore most of the magazine covers I analysed that looked more proffesional used a variety of fonts on the cover.

Sites I like

site 1: I like this site because it shows the main building of the school with a notice board and the bin, this shows the school atmosphere with the bin and the notice board. I shot this longshot low angle picture to show how vast the school building is.

site 2: This site is outside the main building of the school I like the foliage in this picture as it adds a sense of life and makes the school look like a natural and free enviroment. Furthermore the tidy front garden makes the school look efficient and upperclass.

 site 3: This is a picture of the new library. I like this picture because it's bright and shows enough of the new library. I also like the way it shows how large the library is and the bright lighting makes the lirbary seem modern and new.  

 This is an extreme close up of the bin, making it the full focus. I liked this picture because the image puts the bin as full focus making us think that there is soemthing important about it. Bins offten dennote rubbish and tidying up, so the image of the bin could be reminding people to clean up their rubbish.

magazine sketch 3

This is a sketch of a magazine cover that I have decided to use. I like this sketch because is more simple compared to the others and makes the image the main focus.

magazine sketch 2

magazine sketch 1

Audience

In this task we have researched audiences. All media texts have an audience they are directing there material towards once the audience is find you will realise why certain media texts are presented the way they are.
Social class is an important convention used to sort out the audience for media texts. Most people are sorted into 6 groups.
A : Are the professionals and high magerial staff who often earn high salaries
B: Are middle managment and white collar workers
C1: Skilled office workers
C2: Skilled manual workers
D: are unskilled workers usually with lower salaries
E: unemployed or unskilled, students also go under this catergory.
People's social class will often have a role in what kind of media is being presented to them. It is important that media texts are directed at the right target audience, for example a magazine which advertises expensive goods and is at a high price could not be aimed at people in groups C2-E (c2,d,e). This is because they are aiming at the wrong audience so they will sell less copies. However groups C2-E generally have more magazines aimed at them, this is because these people usually have more time on their hands than groups A, B and C1 and because they make a larger percentage of the UK population. This means that media texts are more likely to be aimed at them as there is a larger audience here.When I apply social class with the school magazines I noticed that magazines from private school and grammer are of a higher quality because they are more likely to pay a professional to make the magazine this is because there audience is A and B, these parents are more likely to want to see well designed magazine so the schools will pay for this.
Other demograpghs include gender, age and lifestyle.
Magazines usually aim towards a gender this will define what kind of articles the magazine produces, the pictures inside and the cover style. Furthermore the different genders have different interests for example women may be interested in fashion more than men so magazine aimed towards women will have more fashion articles.
When making media texts they often have to look at the age they are aimed at, the age will define what style the magazine is and the style of writing used i.e teenage magazines may be less formal and use slang and magazines aimed towards older people may use less slang and be more formal. Applying this to the school magazines I noticed the magazines aimed more towards teenagers looked used more slang and informal language and the magazines aimed towards parents were more formal.
Furthermore magazines are also based on lifestyle for example, the DINKY'S and the YUPPIES. The yuppies are people who have just got their degrees or qualifications they are generally middle class or upper class, the DINKYS are double income people with no kids. DINKYS can generally afford luxuries so magazines aiming at them will be of a higher quality.

Audience Research

Research is an important part in making a media text, you must have an idea of who your target audience are and what they want from a media text. This is why many different techniques are used in order to get enough information when creating media text for example magazines.
After doing research on the different types of research used these are the main ones I have found:

• Primary research: gathering information yourself, this can be through doing questionnaires and surveys, interviews, focus group etc. The main benefits to primary research is that it's your own research so you can tailor the questions to make them suitable on what you want to find out, it's also inexpensive and you can get as much information as you want. However drawbacks to primary research are the fact it is time consuming when it comes to turning the research into data or sorting it out as well as this issue finding suitable people to interview etc. can be difficult and this can cause a problem because making sure you have the right type of people is important if you want to collect good data and information.
• Secondary research: looking through someone else's research this can be by looking at other magazines, newspapers, websites etc it can also be looking at previous data from previous questionnaires and applying them to yourself. These is beneficial because it can help you gather alot of different information as information is already out there, this can also be less time consuming in contrast to going out and collecting data yourself. However finding information from other peoples work isn't always reliable as it may be irrelevant data. For example if your doing a primary school magazine research secondary school magazines would provide you with some information that is irrelevant because the target audiences are different. Furthermore using secondary research makes you reliant on other peoples research and statistics which may not be accurate. 

Within Secondary and Primary research I found that there were different ways to obtain information.
The main ways I researched:
Focus groups
Questionnaires
Online Surveys
Interview

These will all help me get my primary research done.
Focus groups usually involve getting a small number of people and asking them questions within that group, these are usually open questions which will allow me to ask more questions and allow my respondent(s) to open up on their thoughts and feelings, which may provide me with qualitative data. Interviews are similar but usually involve questioning one person. Both ways are often take a long time but they allow you to get a lot of qualitative data and opinions.
Online Surveys, I have the option of putting an online survey on my blog. This is similar to a questionnaire however it is often much shorter (usually one question) and it is better for collecting quantitative data as closed questions are usually asked. I think online surveys are useful as they can help me get a variety of respondents i.e different parts of the country.
Questionnaires are can be used to get qualitative or quantitative data. Usually you have a list of questions and you get as many people as you can to fill them in, these can be a mixture of open or closed questions.

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative data?
Qualitative data usually involves answers and opinions.
Qualitative data can be put into figures that can be turned into pie charts and graphs etc.

What is the difference between an open and closed question?
Open questions are usually questions that require to the respondent to put more thought into their answer often they will be able to include their opinions and more information about themselves.
Closed questions are usually yes or no questions or have boxes if it is multiple choice. Closed questions are often easier to turn into data.

How has this research helped me? 
After  doing this research i have found different ways to collect data for my magazine which will help me. I will be doing mostly primary research because there isn't much infomation on school magazines out there already.