Evaluation

My magazine is a media product that is very similar to that of real magazines. I have studied two other magazines briefly (as you can see in the content analysis), and my magazine is rather similar in the layout of the front covers. However I have not fully studied the text within the magazine so I cannot fully compare it to my magazine as of yet. I wanted to make my magazine multi-cultural. This is because I wanted every reader to enjoy my magazine. However I could not include any cultural information as I did not have to write and pages further then the contents. I also wanted to make the magazine available online, this makes it more interactive. I have used my own choice of pictures, fonts etc. I took note of what my audience wanted the front cover to look like and I then constructed my ideas around it. I took all of my photos that I used on the front cover and on the contents page. This makes the magazine 100% my work. I used various images to enhance the attraction of the magazine.

The magazine attracts too many various individuals, and social groups. In my magazine I have content for every reader. I have puzzles, games and competitions for the younger students and news updates, interviews with the teachers and an agony aunt section for the 6^th formers and staff. 

The good points to my magazine that I created were the layout, colours font and pictures that I chose to apply to the magazine. I also created the first few pages to my magazine in a short period of time. If I had more time to complete the whole magazine, it would be a better magazine. I used the Pages on the Apple Macs. This gave me a huge boost when making and designing my magazine, because by having advanced technology available for use, it enhances the quality and structure of the magazine.

There were many good points to making my magazine; however there are some bad points to. I struggled to use the Pages programme when I was first set the task of making a school magazine. I am not used to using Apple Macs, so I struggled to use the software. I didn’t plan my school magazine as well as I could. If my planning was more precise then my magazine would have looked better, the content would also have been more detailed and suitable. 

This was my first attempt of making a music magazine and due to that there were many faults that now consist in the magazine that I produced. I made many mistakes and errors. The first crucial mistake that I found about my magazine was that I didn’t follow the brief properly. I was supposed to include a medium shot of a student. I did not include this simply because I did not see it on the brief, I saw it after. I will make sure that I read the brief properly when I do any future projects. Another mistake I found was that I overlapped writing with writing. I thought that having the school welcome board as the background picture to my front cover was a good idea, but I then forgot to put a coloured text box under the writing I done on the front cover. This made it hard for the reader to understand what the writing said. I will improve this by choosing a different layout on my next magazine. Another mistake I found was that my masthead was too long and irregularly placed. I can avoid this in my next magazine by choosing a one word masthead, this way it is also straight to the point. The masthead should also be a quarter of the page; my masthead was not a quarter of the page. My front cover was not informative enough; this was due to my magazine being rushed. I had to complete my magazine before a certain deadline, so I could not include as much as I wanted in it. Finally the last mistake I think I could have improved on is the quality of my photos. I took my photos when it was cloudy. This made the pictures look dull and boring. I also took 3 pictures of the same thing and included them in my magazine; this was a lack of planning. In my next magazine I will carefully plan the structure and I will take my photos in decent weather so they don’t look dull.

Overall I think my school magazine was a success. I met the deadline of handing in my school magazine. I think the magazine itself looks good, but as always some improvements could have been made. I am impressed at what I have produced; this project also helps me get used to Apple software. This will help me in my course for Media over 2 years.