Preliminary Task: Research & Planning

In this section I will document the research and planning process for my Preliminary Task. Firstly, I am going to research the codes and conventions of school magazines, as in order to create a realistic media product, I must understand what they look like and what the audience expect to see which will help me to create my own realistic media product which will effectively appeal to my target audience.  

There is a particular format/design that I must follow in order to create a realistic product.  I will first begin by de-constructing four existing school magazine front covers and their contents pages. The reason I'm doing this is to look at the codes and conventions of school magazines, I want to see what makes a successful magazine which appeals to the target audience. This information will then help me make decisions on how to make a successful magazine and contents page for my chosen target audience.

Here is my PowerPoint

After annotating four magazine front covers and contents pages, I have gained a wider understanding of the conventions used for school magazines and how they are used effectively. I have decided to create a flat plan to act as a template for what I want my magazine to look like. Here is my rough template of both the cover and the contents page:

After I had completed this template, I was quite pleased with the layout and I decided to apply this knowledge practically.  I proceeded to create a 'mock up' design for my school magazine and contents page. 

Audience

The purpose of carrying out a questionnaire was to gain and collect information from my assumed target audience. To do this, I gave my questionnaires out to my vertical tutoring group, students aged 11-18 thus giving me a wider age range and variety of people to ask. Here is my questionnaire:

This market research proved very useful and as a result, I gained a lot of useful information, but it was a lot to take in at once. I decided to produce visual data, such as pie charts and graphs, to represent my findings and make it easier for me to analyse.  I could then decide on how I could improve my ideas for my magazine and make it more suitable for the target audience. Here is my data which I produced using Excel:

From this data, I have come to a lot of conclusions: I now know that my main central image for my next magazine cover would have to be of a student, as the majority of my feedback preferred this. I know I should include events/topics that have been openly suggested through the magazine, such as what is happening in school, the school football team, past student interviews or progress checks to detail where they are now and a variety of news about extra-curricular activities.  All of these will help me to make the my magazine as successful as possible and will interest and engage my target audience.

Synthesising the above research, I have produced an initial mock-up using found images:

In my mock-up, I tried to include as many conventions of a school magazine as I could, including:

• masthead
• school logo
• school colours
• date, issue number
• relevant images
• coverlines
• pug
• rhetorical questions

All of which helped to me to shape, plan and create my school magazine mock-up cover and contents page whilst giving me a sound understanding of the codes and conventions needed to target my audience effectively.