Preliminary Task Sketches

Below are my design sketches for my preliminary task. In these, I aimed to get a clear picture of what layout the front cover and contents page would have. This would make it much easier when transferring my ideas onto InDesign, because I would have a better idea of how to proportion everthing so that it fits on the page.

Production Log - Preliminary Task

The preliminary task was completed in two weeks, and was to create a front cover and contents page for a school magazine.

In our first lesson, we were shown examples of previous students' work. This gave me an idea of what I needed to create and I started to get some ideas. 

Following this, we went out around the school to take pictures with a DSLR. It was important to think of what could be used as a cover photo (so a combination of portrait and landscape shots were taken).

Our next step was to produce some design sketches. By this point I had some idea of which picture I wanted to use as my cover photo. Before sketching I decided on a name for the magazine "News@Haydon". I thought the name would be effective for the target audience, as the '@' symbol suggests some form of online interactivity. 

The design sketches gave me a better idea of the layout my magazine was going to have for when I went on to create the final product in Adobe InDesign - an industry standard piece of software.

Once I was happy with my front cover and contents page, I exported them as JPEGs so that I was able to post them onto my blog. 

Preliminary Task

Front Cover

For the front cover, I chose a colour scheme that coordinated with the picture to give the cover a more unified look. The font 'Century Gothic' is used throughout, with some words in bold and/or capitals for effect. This gives the magazine its house style. In other issues of this magazine, I would change the colour scheme to coordinate with the picture. This keeps it interesting for the readers. I called this issue the 'Back to School Edition' to give it relevance to the date (September issue would be the first in the school year). The sell lines are stereotypically related to school life, whilst the most important sell line "The New Building", keeps it relevant to Haydon (because of the building works taking place). 

The name of the magazine "News@Haydon" gives the magazine an up-to-date, modern edge (the '@' symbol is used frequently on social networking sites such as Twitter). This targets the right age group for the magazine. It also suggests interactivity with the magazine (this is a feature that could be added in the future). To support this, I have used the sell line 'the best ways to learn online'. 

Contents Page

The contents page contributes to the overall house style I have created. The font matches that on the front cover and using the '@' symbol in the word 'Contents' makes the house style unique. I feel the content of the magazine fits perfectly with the purpose and target audience. Having a large picture relating to the cover story encourages readers to keep reading.