School magazines, what do they entail?

School magazines, what do they entail?

The two most important parts to get a student to even read the magazine is the front cover and the contents page. However the typical layout and structure of each page is different.

A front cover has a colour scheme or theme of its own which is usually related to the school magazines title or ethos. For example the title itself is always found in the top third, or covering the line of top two thirds. This can fill a large amount of space whole space as this is what draws attention to the magazine itself. “CHiLL”  is a great example of a contradicting magazine in terms of its design beause the colour scheme completely contradicts or juxtaposes the title of the magazine; ‘CHiLL’ has connotations of being cold whereas the connotations of the colour schemes are warmth. 

 The fonts used for the title are usually bold and neutral colours, black and white however “Bishopbriggs Academy” has used a blue font for the title of the school and simply writing the word ‘magazine’ in grey.

The choice of the lower case or capitals depends on what effect the editor of the magazine is trying to create. The editor of George Stevenson High School decided to choose all lower case for there magazine “evolve”. 

The images used on the front cover tend to reflect the ethos of the place of education however they always include a student. “Fusion” an art academy magazine takes using a student in an image combined with the schools ‘art’ ethos by creating a Banksy-like image making it more attractive to its target audience. Another conven Also on the front cover are school emblems or logos and the name of the place of education.

In terms of language the front cover tends to use alliteration like for example “Top Terrace” is the name of a prestigious London schools magazine. Other magazines include quotations from inside the magazine and brief summaries or even a short list of articles which can be found inside. The last but most important thing found on the front of a school magazine is the date, issue, term and year.

A contents page generally uses images that are more trivial similar to that of clip art or graphics style which tend to add extra colour to the page and relate to the schools ethos.

Here are two fantastic examples of trivia clipart like images on the contents page which stick with the theme of the page. Fusion on the left sticks with the ethos of the ethos of the school but also includes the recycle symbol. It also includes the month of the issue which is a complete contrast to the other magazines as they all show the issue on the front cover.



image from the 'CHiLL' contents page



However some schools choose to add images that have a direct relation to the important or more interesting articles like 'CHiLL' uses photos of pupils. 'CHiLL' is also a contrasting magazine as it uses a bold and darker colour in the background were the majority of school magazines use a pale colour so the writing stands out more easily.

The main form in which this page takes is a heading at the top third of the page followed by a list of headings adjoined by its page number. The lists can be separated into sections of relating articles, e.g. sports and entertainment are two of the most used sections, or by the use of columns. As well as the name of each article there is usually a brief description of what the article entails and as great use of questions to make the reader want to read that page. 

This contents page is a great example of seperating the contents page into boxes therefore seperating the articles into sections. However this is more uncommon than you would of thought becuase the traditional collums with the simple list format is more popular.