Preliminary Task Contents Page

For part of my Preliminary Task I produced a electronic mock-up of what I wanted my contents page to look like for my school magazine. When deciding how to include the contents of my magazine, I knew I wanted to do something original. I also wanted to continue with the theme of a school. Considering these ideas I chose to create a school banner as part of my Brand Identity, if I were to produce more contents pages "the Priory School" banner would be persistent throughout. I labelled my page as a contents page by putting the word 'Contents' across the left hand side of the page. I did this because I already had the banner of the magazine going along the top of the page, and so I did not think it would look particularly effective if I was to have too much of the text in one place.Saying this, I wanted to keep the contents page fairly simple, especially seeing as I had the school banner detail as the main focus at the top of the page. Therefore, I did not want to include too many photos, but just enough so that the readers would know what to expect within the magazine.I had two photo's which I decided would look good in particular, a fashion show picture, and a picture where students were working. This created a more relaxed and familiar effect to the readers, and also this created an interesting and playful effect, yet was not too much detail that would distract from the main focus of the page - the contents. The house colours relate specifically to the uniform that the students are obligated to wear in the Priory School. I chose to use Black as the background because any colour can go on top of it, which makes that specific colour, for example on this contents page the Red, stand out because of the matt Black background. The White is also easily recognisable and readable against the black background, and goes with the uniform at the Priory School.
Another decision I chose to make, was the shapes with the numbers in them, this not only appealed to my targeted audience, but also made the contents page more visually interesting. In addition to this, the images in the top right and bottom left hand corner relate to the features within the magazine which gives the reader an insight into what they would expect to see in the magazine. I chose to do the "The usual" and the " So what's new?" in a different colour to the rest of the writing because the Grey colour also links to the school uniform. The writing has an effect on it, to again not only appeal to my targeted audience but to look more visually interesting.I also chose to stick to the rule from Paul Felton's book on Typeography that "Thou shalt not apply more than three typefaces in a document". The decision to use a Serif font on the contents page meant that my magazine was more approachable to the students because it looked less formal. Students are more than likely to dismiss something that looks above their age. The font is fun and frisky, which gives the impression to the audience that the magazine is going to be fun to read, and more importantly beneficial and educational. When deciding what would feature in my magazine i had to think very hard about what i would like to see within a school magazine and what interests suit everyone; i myself am a big fan of the fashion shows and the talents shows, and i was positively sure i wasn't alone on that. However, the arts isn't for everyone- certain boys appreciate more sporting activities so the decision for this to feature was not hard.
In addition to this, i included a " have your say" which basically enables the students to invoice ideas for the magazine and what they would like to see.