School-based Magazine Research

Deconstruction of Pinch of Salt magazine – Titus Salt

School

The masthead is located in the top third of the cover – a typical convention of a magazine. Its location means that it draws attention (as you typically start to read from the top of the page) to achieve its purpose is of introducing the magazine to its readers.The colours of the masthead coincide with the school logo, and also the colours used throughout the rest of the page, to give the magazine an identity through a colour scheme. The font used is bold and easy to read to help grab the audience’s attention, and get its message across quickly and easily. Again, the font is commonly used by the school, in other media, such as letters and PowerPoints, making it recognisable for students and parents alike – the target audience of the magazine. To these people, the font connotes Titus Salt school, helping to brand the magazine.

The tag line introduces the magazine in more detail, letting readers know exactly what the magazine is all about.

This coverline includes sibilance, making it catchy and giving the magazine a fun and happy feel, about a positive topic. The coverline is written in a different font to the masthead and footer to differentiate it from the school’s identity. However, the font is still bold and eye-catching, and sticks to the colour scheme.

The text above the coverline is linked directly to the coverline. It’s telling the audience clearly how to find the article easily, once the coverline has grabbed their interest.

A large image fills the majority of the cover – a convention of any kind of magazine. This image is specific to a school based magazine because of its mise-en-scene. The photo is a medium/close-up shot of two students, sat in a classroom, working from a school text book, pens in hand. They are both smiling, connoting that they are happy with their choice of school. This is important for the school to show parents, and also and prospective students that may see the magazine from older siblings, or on the Internet, and it also means that the image links in with the coverline because their smiles and apparent hard-working attitudes (connoted from their poses) impliesthat they are some of the students making a strong start at secondary school.

The footer is the school’s ‘motto’. It is featured here on every edition of the magazine because it is an important part of the school’s ethos, which the school wants to portray through the magazine. The font and colour scheme used will be familiar to parents and students, as it is commonly used in other forms of the school’s media, although to some extent, it fits within the colour scheme of the magazine, so it doesn’t look out of place. The text font is clear and easy to read so that it can be understood easily by the target audience. It’s also short and snappy, and turned into an anagram so that it can be easily recalled.

The audience is made aware of the volume using small yet clear typography because it doesn’t need to capture the audience’s attention.

The Pinch of Salt magazine doesn’t have a contents page. This is largely to do with the length of the magazine; it’s very short at only eight pages long. The length of the magazine means that the magazine is already very easy to navigate around, removing the need for a contents page which is designed to help with navigation around the production. Also, if a contents page was included, it would be very difficult to fill due to a lack of content and thus would arguably be a waste of space. Creating a contents page would require more time and money, which the producers of the magazine don’t really have because the magazine is small-scale and only intended to go out to those involved with the school, such as parents, carers, students, teachers, and visitors to the school. Magazines with a bigger budget, such as fashion and music magazines, are often longer, and therefore have more of a need for a contents page to make navigation around the numerous pages more easy.

This banner is present on every page of the magazine to help to create a theme and identity for the magazine. It also helps the pages to look tidy and professional. The inclusion of the logo of the magazine and the tagline reinforces the branding to make the audience remember it.

Lots of relatively small images are included on this double page spread to accompany the short articles. I think that this layout is effective because the images balance with the amount of typography and add colour to the pages to make them vibrant and eye catching.

If it’s not made clear in the article, small captions are included in the corner of some of the graphology to tell the audience who or what the photograph is of. All of the articles

included on this double page spread are positive articles about student’s achievements. These types of articles are included throughout the magazine to reward students for their achievements, and to show parents what the school is helping their children to achieve in order to create a good impression to assure parents that children in the care of the school are successful and happy. The articles are also aimed towards students, to encourage them to work hard and reap the rewards, just as the students featured in the magazine have been able to.

The articles of this double page spread are presented in a dynamic way to attract and maintain attention of the audience. This particular article is presented in a bright yellow circle, made to look like it is attached to the page with a pin. The vibrant colour attracts attention, and the circle breaks the conventions of a very typical magazine layout, making it different and thus more interesting. The pin relates the layout back to school, as it is a piece of equipment commonly found in schools, and is helping to create a theme along with the other articles on this side of the page which are ‘stuck’ with Sellotape and clips. The fact that all of the articles are presented in a different way means that they are easily differentiated so that they are easy for the audience to enjoy, and each student featured is also given an identity.

On each page, a page number is included to help the audience navigate through the magazine easily. Although there isn’t a contents page for the audience to refer to along with the page numbers, specific pages are mentioned on the front cover, meaning there is a need for each page to be numbered.

Students featured in the images are smiling, connoting that they are pleased with their achievements. This is an important message to send out to the target audience of the magazine.