Codes and Conventions of a School Magazine

Codes and Conventions of a School Magazine

One of the tasks I had to do was to analyse a school magazine front cover in detail to find what codes and conventions are used and why, the purpose of this task was for me to be able to gain a better understanding of what codes and conventions look good with one another and to give the chance to get a better idea of what codes and conventions I will aim to include when I come to design my magazine front cover for the school.

Firstly the masthead, in my opinion the masthead has many good and bad points, the colours used could be improved as the white writing doesn’t stand out too much on the background that mostly consists of light grey and also the red and yellow colouring also looks a bit out of place in my opinion. However, one good point about the masthead is that it covers the entire width of the page, this is effective as it seems to add a bit more professionalism and quality to the magazine as it looks like it’s supposed to be there rather than the masthead just being on one of the sides not covering the width making it look odd.

 

 

 

Another code and convention that I noticed was the ‘puff’ in the top left of the front cover, this is effective as, first of all the blue stands out on the page as there is quite a drastic contrast in colours between that and the window that makes the background. Also, the puff will make readers want to read the magazine as they will want to make the most of the free gift.

 

The magazine also uses a strip down the right of the page which I think is effective as it gives the reader the chance to quickly see what is in the magazine enabling them to make an informed decision on whether to read it or not. The colour choice of the strip is a good one as the white writing really stands out on the page as that section of the magazine has a dark grey style background which contrast with the white.

Finally, the main feature article picture adds a sense of professionalism to the magazine as the image is of high quality. However, one major improvement that could be made would be the choice of background, this is because the writing is predominantly white and it doesn’t exactly stand out and ‘jump off the page’ at the reader, however the background was improved the magazine as a whole would stand out a lot more than it already does.

 

Overall, the editor of the magazine has done a good job as he/she was able to fit in a lot of the main codes and conventions making it a successful front cover.