Important Information.

As this will be a school magazine, I will have to ensure that I include vital information about the school.

On the front cover, I would like to show the readers what they expect to find inside. This will be looked at in further detail in the contents page.

Some of the things I hope to include...

- The price of the magazine.

- The date of the magazine.

- Competitions and results.

- Calenders (extra curriculum and upcoming events).

- Interviews with teachers and students.

- Student of the day/week/month/year.

- How each house are doing.

- Any information that would be found in the end of term letter.

Rough layouts.

I did a little bit of research here. I looked up a few school magazines and looked at the layout of each one. I picked out a few ideas I liked from each one to produce my own rough layout.

I really like the background on this magazine as it looks like paper. This works well as it is a school magazine and I hope to use something similar to this on my preliminary.

I like this cover as it is busy and includes enough information to attract people to it. Although there is not a pupil on the front of the magazine, I feel it still works as people will be more inclined to buy it if a hero of theirs is on the front.

I really like this cover as it has a catchy title and a witty subheading. The colours work well as they fall into the image of the main photo. I particularly like the banner at the bottom of the page as it allows the readers to see what is inside.

Here is the rough layout I drew. It is just a basic layout and there wont be any font of colour ideas yet.

Finding a suitable title.

This is first on my list as it was going to take me a while to finally think of a name. The name is integral in the production of this task as it shows the readers what they will be reading. It would not work if I had a title about Dartford if the magazine is about Wilmington. Therefore I had to think of a few ideas and see which I preferred. I started by writing down a few words that loosely related to the school:

- Wilmo

- Daily

- Weekly

- Monthly

- Wilmington

- Boys

- Grammar

- School

- Mag

- Times

- Independent

After looking through these words, I found that I liked 'Wilmo Times', 'Wilmington Monthly' and 'Wilmo Boys Mag'. In the end I decided that 'Wilmo Times' was most fitting for my magazine title. I also asked a few members of the school which they preffered. This was not shaped like a survey, it was a small amount of research that helped me in my final decision. I also felt that 'Wilmington Monthly' would have only worked if the magazine was to be published every month and 'Wilmo Boys Mag' was fitting for the school, however, it deterred females in the sixth form from wanting to look at the magazine. It is after this conclusion that I chose 'Wilmo Times' as it closely resembles a well know newspaper.

Planning my Preliminary.

There are a number of tasks i will have to do to complete my Preliminary Task. These are:

- Find a suitable title.

- Take hundreds of photos to find the perfect one.

- A few rough layouts and ideas.

- Find the information that I wish to include.

- Find various complimentary fonts for my magazine.

- Pick the colours to use throughout out the task.

I will do each task independently to finally produce my preliminary task.

Preliminary Task.

Here is the brief for the Preliminary Task.

Preliminary exercise: 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.

I will be following this brief to ensure I do well in this task.