School Magazine Evaluation

With my school magazine, I have been inspired by the Bishopbriggs Academy school magazine, as I love how simplistic it is, yet gives all the relevant information needed without over crowding the page. I also kept my magazine simplistic with only two pictures on the front cover and only 4 subheadings. With my contents page I have made an almost zigzag kind of layout. By this I mean I have the picture on the left hand side and relevant subheadings and extra information on the right, then visa-versa underneath. As Whitley Bay High School has a blue wave in the background of its logo, I incorporated a blue wave-like pattern onto the bottom of my pages, which I drew out in Photoshop. In the top left hand corner of both pages I added the WBHS logo, as every other school magazine I studied has their logo somewhere.

I found that when I was taking photographs, that using artificial light (the flash) was more successful as it helps bring out my models complexion and really gives them more of a presence on the page. Photoshop CS4 was extremely helpful for making my magazine as I made the wave pattern on the bottom of the page, as mentions earlier, I created a shadowed effect on the title, which I believe looks great, I used the ‘magic wand’ tool to safely outline my models in the pictures and delete the backgrounds without rubbing them out, I edited the hue and saturation on every image to maximise the quality of each picture and finally any marks, scars, blotches or spots on my models, I got rid of with the ‘spot healing brush’. Photoshop CS4 was excellent.  Sadly, I am a perfectionist so with every project I do I always want everything to be perfectly in line and match in size etc. Adobe InDesign was fantastic for this as pictures and text boxes almost jump to recommended lines on the page. InDesign is an easy program to use once you get the hang of it and makes the making of my magazine so much easier.

Overall I believe that my school magazine has been successful in the sense that I have kept that simplistic, yet informative, look that I like for a school magazine, the colour scheme was successful as it all fits together and also links in with the school logo and finally I believe for a first time photographer that I have taken some good quality medium close-up shots.