Preliminary Magazine 

To create a school magazine.

Today we have started our School Magazine, which will help us for our initial Music Magazine that we will be doing as part of our AS course. I have chosen to do a magazine that represents our entire school, it will have:

• Front page
• Contents page

The front page will be a picture of the school from a extreme long shot, it will also have some advertisements around the outside of the front cover about what's in the magazine.
My contents page will obviously have all the contents and page numbers, but it will also have pictures about whats in the magazine. 

Mood Boards Regarding Music Magazine

For part of our course we have to design and produce a music magazines front cover and double page spread. This part of my research shows what I have produced as a mood board:

This image shows my first mood board, which shows different ideas for front covers, and three different fonts that I can choose from. I want my music magazine to be obviously musical, but I want it to have a sense of class and a modern understanding about our world, and attributes. I have chosen a couple of selected fashion magazines because in my magazine I want to be able to show what's new, interesting and on the market as well. I have chosen a selected number of music magazines as well, because I want my magazine to have a 'rocky' feel to it.

This image shows my second mood board, it shows many different fonts that I'm going to consider using for my music magazine. I got some of these fonts off the website http://cooltext.com/ which lets you generate your own text as logo form, and the others I used WordArt off Microsoft Office applications. For my magazine, I would like a text that is more simple than some of the ones that you can see on the above, because I would like my magazine to be simple yet interesting and I believe that the front text doesn't necessarily have to be eye catching and interesting to be able to engage the audience, for example; take magazines such as Vogue or Elle, if you notice their text on the front page, it's not exactly engaging or eye catching, yet millions of people buy their magazine. 

This image shows my third mood board, this presents a more focused view on the images I am going to consider documenting in my music magazine. I have chosen a wide selection of electric guitars, which I believe is possibly the key musical instrument to a 'rocky' band, and I think that if I document this then it will hopefully engage my target audience; guitars are unisex, and there is not a preferred gender. Secondly, I have chosen to document the 'rocky', 'punk' and 'grunge' fashion ideas, because I want my magazine to be unisex I would like it to engage both males and females, and if the females don't like the guitars, or the instruments I'd like them to at least like something else about the magazine, so I have chosen a wide range of fashion ideas that would perhaps be documented in my magazine. Thirdly, I have documented bands; the main focus on the rock style is the music, and the biggest names in rock attract the biggest audience. As you can see I have documented such pictures of bands and icons like The Rolling Stones or Bob Geldof, who have got a gigantic fan group. I think that if I got 'interviews' with new artists or bands that are influenced by these artists then I would perhaps attract that target audience.

Researching School Magazines 

When researching magazines you have to consider the target audience, which in this case it is school children, parents and staff. We have been looking at all the key aspects to a school magazine and what one would entail, such as;

• The school logo; the school logo would ensure that you are looking at the right magazine, and it would give you a good idea of what sort of school it is, what it's aspects are and (if the logo is something that can be found on the school grounds) what the school looks like. 
• Information about the school. For example; the percentage of students in 2011 who got an A* at GCSE, or information about our Football Team
• Activities; after school sports clubs, sports fixtures, scores etc
• The school moto; see the first point
• Picture of the Head Teacher; the Head Teacher reflects on the school, and if he/she is well presented it gives you the impression that the school will be, if he/she is well spoken then it gives you the impression that the students will be
• Photo of the school grounds; this photo will obviously give you a literal view and impression of what the school is like, and how it's presented. The way the school is presented reflects onto the students, staff, parents and community. 
• Articles; what's going on in the school, reports from the students, interviews with Gifted and Talented students, teachers pleas to join their after school club, library matters etc.
• Pictures; of pupils art work, books, essays the students have done really well on, pictures of students doing sport

I think that all these points will be key to ensuring that the school has a successful magazine that engages the students, parents and teachers.