this is my mock up front cover for my music magazine.

These are my front cover and index page for my school newspaper

 Media index page evaluation

Our task was to create an index page for our school magazine, we also needed to include a suitable picture and the articles that are going to be in the magazine.

The target audience for my index page is the same as the front cover as I want the Sixth Form students to find it interesting and make them want to buy the magazine. The index page will appeal to the audience as I have used an image of Sixth Form students, this will show that the magazine is aimed at their age range. The story behind the index page is to show the reader what articles will be featured throughout the magazine. This will make the reader want to decide whether the articles will interest them or not which will produce their final decision on whether they want to buy the magazine or not.

In preparation for the index page we looked at a variety of magazine index pages to see how they are put together. We also looked at Glamour magazines which are targeted towards females, the index page has a main image which is the main part, it covers at least half of the page.  We also looked at school magazines online to see what the conventions were and whether they would be suitable for our index or not.

I used the same coloured font on my index page so it follows a suitable house style. I have used a different font style for the articles as this will draw the reader’s attention and they can easily pick out the article that they want to read. For the index page I used Photoshop, this was difficult as I have never really used Photoshop in depth before. Because of this I didn’t know many of the effects or how to use them. Therefore, I used the basic editing techniques such as blur and looked at a variety of websites on how to style font and manipulate images.

From creating this index page I now have a better understanding on how to use some of the effects within Photoshop. The editing process was long as I decided to watch tutorials on how to use the different effects.

My task is to create a front cover and index page for a school newspaper/magazine. The conventions that I used for my front cover are a ‘bold’ headline which stood out, this also fits with my target  audience, and it will appeal to both genders. I also used this because it will attract the attention of the reader. Another convention that I used is that it includes other articles that will be in the magazine. The reason I used this convention is that when they see the front cover these articles will help them make the decision whether they want to buy the magazine or not. These articles will make them want to buy the magazine as the stories will be based around their age.

The target audience for the magazine would be 16-18 year olds and will be for both genders. The reason for this age is that the articles that will be in my magazine will interest them, this is because the articles will be based on what is going on around school and will be a bit nosy with what is happening with the teachers. I feel that these kind of articles are what the target audience want to read into. The target audience's hobbies will be sport, going out with their friends to clubs overnight, they may also be driving or learning to drive. My front cover will appeal to this target audience as I have used an image of a student who is this age range, this will show that the magazine is for their age. The story behind my front cover is that it is trying to appeal to the target audience and make them buy the magazine.

In preparation for making my cover I did research into music magazines and looked at what conventions they follow to create a successful front cover.

The font that I used for the front cover was a bold blue font – NAME?? which stands out above the image I have used. The editing software that I used to create my front cover was publisher. As there are not many ways to edit on publisher it was easy to use. Therefore I did not use Photoshop as I am inexperienced and found it difficult to use.

I have become more skilled in trying to put together a front cover, I now have a better understanding of how to make a front cover appeal to the audience. Creating the front cover took around an hour and a half as we were trying to choose a suitable image to use.