School Magazine Research

Alex Machin

Every magazine for a school must fit into the theme of the school and like this front cover for a prestigious Grammar school in Kent, it does just that. As you can see, the title of the magazine has been given a catchy name “Grape Vine” taken from the phrase “I heard it through the grape vine” whilst the font and picture play relevance to the title aswell as presenting the feeling of being prestigious or posh. Black and white adds to this theme as it allows the audience to focus on the writing and pictures, instead of the colour. Whilst the only little bit of colour on there (the contents) allows itself to stand out against the black and white whilst making the front cover less boring. Note the contents is on the front cover but it has very little detail and doesn’t specify much on what is inside the magazine. I would give this magazine a target audience to both parents and children.

The main colours of this front cover suggest that these colours are the schools colours, there by being burgundy and blue. The logo is also (I presume) the logo of the school. The title “The Ruthinian” gives the impression of “prestige” and “wealth”, this is combined with the almost gold coloured writing and logo, gold symbolising wealth and therefore giving the front cover the impression of wealth.

Personally, I believe that there should be lots more information or pictures on this page as it seems too plain. However, a more sparse front cover could make a bigger impact on the audience looking at the magazine.

This magazine’s colours range between a light to dark yellow. The yellow colour brings out the theme of happiness and fun into the magazine, suggesting that this is a magazine aimed mainly for pupils. Also, the main picture is a pencil being sharpened. This classically “schoolish” picture shows us that the magazine is trying to relate to school pupils more than their parents or carers. The title “The Loyolite 2009” is coloured blue and yellow as these two colours go greatly with the colour yellow, and also fit into the theme of brightness. In the corner the schools logo is placed very carefully and as it is bright pink, blends well with the dark yellow. One criticism I would make is that the bright yellow around the bottom of the cover and the dark yellow do not blend, leaving it to look slightly unprofessional.

From looking at both the bright blue colouring of the magazine, aswell as the fun and informal font, we can see that this school magazine contents is clearly targeted at the children of the school and not their parents. The school logo behind the “Contents” title suggests that this is also aimed primarily at school pupils as they have already seen the logo many times before.

The school photos give the reader a taster of what's to come inside the magazine aswell as it relates to the target audience; being the pupils.

The colours of this magazine background is a mixture between a darkish blue and white, this gives the impression of serenity and profession. For the title and each of the contents segments, they are coloured in a block, primary colour. This is to compliment the school theme of the contents, aswell as contrast against the cool, blue and white background. The picture of the girl is presumably a student of the said school who will draw readers with her attractiveness aswell as her familiarity, this tells me the target audience is school pupil and not parents/carers.

Personally, I believe this magazine cover is not very aesthetically pleasing. The actual contents is split up into three sections in a clear way in order to allow the reader to distinguish the articles in the magazine. The contents font colour is white, which contrasts against the background. Pupils from the actual school (presumably) which suggests to me that the target audience for this magazine is not the parents but the pupils of the said school. The red and black background give the impression of something dark and sinister which is one of the criticisms I can make of this magazine contents. The logo is in the corner yet isn't fully clear giving the impression that the target audience for this magazine are people who already know the magazine well (i.e. school pupils).