Georgiana Angus

After I created the front cover of my school magazine, it was vital that I compare it to an official magazine to see if I followed the codes and conventions of school magazines in general and how may compared to that of a officially produced piece of text.

The official magazine is a lot more content filled than the cover of mine. With multiple coverlines in an array of different styles it has a very intricate and complex cover, making it interesting to look at and read. In comparison to mine which has two main cover lines and one sticker to advertise the contents. This makes the cover not a very good advertisement for the contents of the magazine as it suggests that there are not many interesting stories on the inside.

The coverlines on the official one follow the same general trend of colour font and size thus adding to the house style. Each are preceded by, or followed by and arrow which also follows the colour scheme of the rest of the coverlines. This makes it pleasing to look at, and generally more exciting than just having one basic font with no stickers. My coverlines don't follow a general colour scheme, though they do follow a similar font style, the lack of a colour scheme takes away from a potential house style and thus decreases the quality of my magazine. It does not make it easy to look at or generally pleasing to see, so my coverlines for the final piece will need a lot of work.

The coverlines on the official magazine have bolded key words to make them stand out against the rest and therefore draw the eye to it. This is a trick that I attempted to follow in mine. I bolded the word "UCAS" as because of the target audience of the school magazine (6th formers) UCAS is a big thing, so by putting it in bold should hopefully draw the attention of some students who are thinking about or worried about UCAS. My other bold section was the year "2015" which was a bad choice on my part. It is not exactly relevant to the audience and does not draw the eye. Instead I should have change the bold work from "2015" to "SUMMER" as this would attract the attention of students looking forward to a few weeks of school. So hopefully in my final piece I will rectify this and make the bolding more relevant and useful.

For both magazines we had the picture of a smiling student, looking into the camera. As the targets audiences age is different for each magazine the age of the model changed also. BACK TO SCHOOl is aimed mostly a parents with young children who have just started or are a few years into their education. So the magazine is designed to help parents get to grips with the ins and outs of having children in school. By putting a cute adorable child on the cover, smiling up at you, it suggests that if you read the magazine and get the tips it offers, your child could also be happy and as healthy looking as the model on the front. By rule of thirds the child's head is dead in the centre of the page, making it the most noticeable thing on the cover.

THE STUDENT PROJECT is not aimed at parents but more at the students themselves. So I used a model the same age as 6th Form students as this would be relatable to the target audience. As she is smiling and wearing nice clothes, and her hair is done in a smart but attractive style, it indicates to the reader that she takes pride in the way she looks and also enjoys school. The magazine is made to make 6th form life a little easier by giving out tips and advice, so by having a smart, happy looking girl on the cover suggest that the magazine can do all this for you. In comparison to the official magazine, my models head is not in the centre, but rather more in the top third of the picture. This still draws the eye to it, but it allows more of their clothes to be shown, and that was needed to demonstrate her smartness. The Model's clothes in the official magazine is not needed to be shown as it is a typical primary school uniform, and you can tell this from the collar, so immediately you know the model is a primary school student. Whereas in my magazine, I needed more of the clothes shown to make it clear that she is a 6th form student.

Overall, I can draw many comparisons between the two magazines, but their are few notable differences that make the official magazine look more professional and put together.