In class on Monday, we were analysing contents pages. We started off by identifying different conventions of contents pages, such as page numbers, of the articles and pictures that will be included in the article. Once we had done that, were given four different contents pages. They were from the magazines, NME, Marie Claire, OK and Scratch. When analysing them, I found out that there is a lot of thought that goes into the different contents pages to make them recognisable as part of their magazine. For example, the contents of NME magazine, used a lot of plain and dark colours. also the pictures included were mostly of males. However, the pictures included in the Marie Claire contents page, they were ALL of women, and were all very bright colours and patterns. The main similarity that I found between all the contents pages, was that the main articles all had bigger pictures compared to smaller articles, and they also had the page numbers linked to these articles next to the picture. I hadn't really thought about or looked at a contents page in this much detail before, but now that I have, I realise that there is a lot of detail needed to make the contents page individual to the magazine.
Then we found out the preliminary task for our coursework. We will be asked to make a cover and a contents page for a school magazine. to help us with this, we made mood boards with pictures and words that will inspire our school magazines.
Because i want to base my school magazine mainly on the achievments of students and the idea of community within school, i chose pictures to go on my mood board that represent that. I chose a picture of someone with a certificate, that looks happy to show that he is proud of what he has achieved. I chose a picture of some children looking happy and smining towards the camera and looking like they're all happy to show a sense of community. this is also shown through the fact that they're all wearing the same colours/uniform. I chose pictures of our school because my magzine will be abour Ruislip high.This is my finished mood board:
For my homework this week, I have been using the 'McMahon and Quinn' method to analyse the cover of one of the Ruislip High newspaper covers. I have discussed the colours used, the quality of pictures (which were very blurry) and the symbols that they put on the cover to indicate that it was a christmas issue. The main difference between the magazine cover I analysed in class and the Ruislip High newspaper was that there was more writing on the cover of the Ruislip High cover which makes it obvious it is a newspaper, and for school!
Today in media studies, we looked at magazine covers. We analysed the different features of a magazine cover, using the 'McMahon and Quinn'. The magazine i got was 'Closer'. I analysed things such as the cropping of photographs, the masthead and the layout of the page. While analysing this magazine cover, i found that the magazine cover showed a lot of variety in the way that the writing on it was presented and the colours used. I found out that reason the three pictures were used was because it showed the peron's whole body, this related to the stories and the fact that it was a positive story and that the people featured in the story were happy and comfortable.
