Main Task

The Brief

* the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style).

All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate(s), minimum of four images per candidate.

The presentation of the research, planning and evaluation may take the form of any one, or combination of two or more, of the following:

a presentation using slideshow software such as Powerpoint;
a blog or website;
a podcast;
a DVD with 'extras'

Preliminary Exercise

The Brief

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.

The Title

Firstly, I considered a list of titles which would be suitable for the name of the school magazine. I wanted something memorable, as well as original. Some of the possible titles that I had thought of included:

- Welcome to Wilmington
- WGSBlast
- The Wilmington Way
- Wilmo's World
- Wilmo For The Win!

My initial idea was to use The Wilmington Way as the final title, because it was quite simple and was evident what the magazine would be about. However after talking to a couple of my friends and classmates, I settled with Wilmo's World as the magazine's name. I decided it would be better suited as it was catchy, with the use of alliteration, and preferred by most of the people asked.

The Cover & Contents

Before taking any pictures for the main feature of the magazine, I needed to note any ideas for the cover and then plan what I was going to do. I thought of different subjects, or areas around the school I could use for the taking of the photo:

- Sport; on the playing fields, or hall
- Science labs; experiments, practicals
- Music; playing instruments
- Art; paintings, sculptures - pupils at work
- Technology/Engineering; in the workshop, machinery
- Working on computers; ICT, science etc.

Next, I jotted down possible ideas for any features within the magazine; both for the main story and other headings:

- Interviews with pupils/teachers
- School Events; calendar
- Sport scores and updates
- Revision classes/guides
- Yearly sections; sixth form etc.
- Upcoming or previous trips
- Lunchtime and after school clubs
- Music; choir/orchestra
- Other significant activities

From all of these thoughts, I figured I would use revision guides as the subject for my cover, because many students would find this useful. I decided to use my brother for the photos, and picture him working in the classroom. I took shots from many different angles, so that I had more choice when finalising the main photograph.

Once the final photo had been chosen, I had to begin annotating creating the titles and headlines to be placed on the cover. I chose colours which would compliment the image, and that matched the school's own symbol or logo - with the use of blue's and yellow's. I followed this trend and also added a spot of red.

Here is how my finished cover eventually looked like;



Next, I had to create a planning for the magazine's contents page. Again, I wanted to follow the general house theme used throughout the cover, so kept use of the same colours.

Here is the layout of my planned design;