Thursday 18 September 2008

Analysis of school magazine covers:

For my reasearch on my prelimary task I had to first look at 3 magazine covers for any school and any year and to analyse the front cover which will help me investigate into what year I want to aim my school magazine at.
Denotation and connotation: 
Rainey Endowed School
This is a front cover of Rainey Endowed school magazine in 2006. By looking at the pictures I can tell that it is a senior school as the images on the front involve people in this age group aging from year 7 to year 11.
The target audience would be for both male and female which could involve the students or parents. The images on the magazine are very formal and posed; this probably wouldn’t appeal to students as it had more information about the activities at school and what is going on in the school. This would be aimed at parents or even teachers and visitors to the school, for people that want an idea about the school and its activities.
The colour of the magazine is very plain with no bright colours apart from the school logo this indicates what the school may be like. There is not much writing at all apart from the name of the school; the magazine is very simple with a plain black cover and only very basic professional pictures going down the right hand side. Even the text is very simple; there are no colours or fonts used only the posed pictures of the school and a plain white headline of the school. This would not stand out no anybody, but does have a professional look to it, that would appeal to more visitors and parents than the students at school, which defeats the point of having a school magazine.
KEHS
The magazine is for a 6 form called KEHS (King Edward High school for girls). The magazine is called HighProfile and by the images of the front I can tell that it is aimed towards a female audience. The girls on the front appear very happy and like they are enjoying themselves, even though the magazine is very posed, this can make the image come across fake even though they look generally cheerful. The background colour of the magazine is plain and grey, this makes the girls face paints and bright clothes along with their smiles makes them stand out in a positive way. The magazine is not so much academic but more aimed at the fun part of extra curricula services at their school, this suggests that it more at the students rather than the parents that would benefit in knowing what happens in school. The students of school also wrote the magazine which means that the structure would be set out differently to a person that was older for example a teacher that would have written it. Writing a school magazine always depends on who is the target audience, a front cover makes a significant difference to who will read it and who it is aimed at. The target audience for this magazine would be the female students of the school and the contents would contain information very much like the cover, fun and interesting stories that highlight to girls at that schools interests. The magazine has a more laid back approach compared the above school.

George Stephenson High School

Evolve is the Student magazine from George Stephenson High School. The front cover of this magazine first appears bold and colorful, but lost to its meaning. Looking closer we can see that the main image is very artistic, reflecting the type of school and the image to which they want to display to the outside. The image is made up of smaller pictures, including pencils, skulls, erasers, and historic people. The images do have a culture clash as well as the amount of different interests that it includes. It immediately draws our attention and is very unlike other school magazines. It does not have any students on the cover or any relation to the academic part of the school. It is very obscure and because of its lack of information or interest in the school academia or studies, it would most probably be a student magazine and not one aimed at parents or potential students to the school, even though it does fed off a good impression as an artistic interesting school. Though the magazine gives little impression of the students or school, the attention-grabbing image would give off quite an impression.
The magazines is called ‘evolve’ which is not the name of the school like most school magazines even though the name of the magazine is printed above the title. Being a ‘student magazine’ these are the people that the magazine is directed out and that the publishers of the magazine need to have in mind when producing this to suit the years 7-11 of both genders. The colour scheme and ideas would have to be suitable to suit both boys and girls. Colour choice will have to be chosen carefully and even the image I use on the front cover could determine the kind of person that wants to read my magazine. I have to keep all these things in mind when producing my school magazine. The name of the magazine is printed in thick bold black writing against a cloudy background, which makes this and the image stand out. The name ‘evolve’ means development, which is a positive name for a school as it shows the progress in what the school is different. It could also mean the evolvement in students in the school, both these meanings generate a positive attitude towards the school and students.

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