Coursework Deadline

All coursework must be submitted by Friday 18th March.

This includes all work for the Magazine, Print Advert. You will be given your Print Advertising coursework folders on Monday 14th March, which will give you a week to improve your work.

We will be starting the ACTION ADVENTURE exam topic on Monday 21st March. Therefore it is in your best interests to meet the final submission of coursework deadline, as there will no longer be any lesson time to improve your coursework. Think very carefully about how you prioritise your time in lessons and indepependently at home in the coming week. COURSEWORK IS WORTH 60% of your overall GCSE grade.

Magazine Evaluation (800-1000) words

This is the final task you need to complete for the Magazine Unit. Please read the questions below and use them to structure your magazine evaluation.

1. How have you met the aims of the production?

·         Explain your coursework brief – what were you asked to create?

·         What did you do in terms of research and planning before you started creating your magazine?

·         What were your initial aims for your magazine – what is the genre of your magazine? Who were your primary target audience? (state the gender, age range and interests)

2. How have you applied appropriate codes and conventions?

·         Print screen each of your magazine pages (front cover,contents page and double page article)

·         Label the codes and conventions you have used on each page and explain how they reflect the genre/style of your magazine as well as how they appeal to your audience.

3. How does your magazine represent people?

·         Analyse the images you have used in your magazine and explain how you have represented the person through the camera shot and mise-en-scene (clothing, body language and facial expression).

·         Is your representation stereotypical? Or have you challenged familiar stereotypes?

·         Analyse the text in your double page article. What is the overall message of the article, how does it contribute to the representation of the person featured?

4. Where would your magazine be published and when?

·         Which shops would sell your magazine and why? How often will it be published?

·         Will you have an online edition? Will you include any additional features e.g. competitions in the online edition? Will you publish the online version more frequently than the print edition?

·         What is the advantage of having an online edition?

5. What regulations and controls might be applied to your magazine and how have these been taken into consideration?

·         Are your magazine images original? If you have used a mixture of original and found images consider how the impact of copyright law could effect your magazine.

·          Carry out some brief research into the PCC, which is a regulatory body for magazines and newspapers. Give two examples from their code of practice and consider how they may be applied to your magazine.

6. To conclude sum up the overall strengths and weaknesses of your magazine, in terms of production design, as well as how it meets your audience needs.

Example of A grade Magazine Production

Planning the Layout of your Magazine

You should by now, have completed the following  Research tasks:

1. Labelled the conventions of a magazine cover
2. Analysed two magazine covers
3. Analysed a contents page
4. Analysed a double page article
5. Created a questionnaire and given it out to at least 10 people (who are your target audience).
6. Collated the results and turned them into graphs using Excel.
7. Analysed your results and written a magazine proposal.

Once you have completed the above tasks you will be ready to plan the layout of your magazine pages on paper. You do not have to be an artist to gain high marks in the planning. What you need to do, however,  is to show you know and understand the conventional layout of magazine pages.

I have included some examples of layout drafts below.

Front Cover

Contents Page



Double Page Article Page 1



Double Page Article page 2

Magazine Proposal Questions

1. Who is your target audience? (think about age, sex, interests and hobbies)
2. Will your magazine be a mainstream or niche magazine? What will the magazine be about?
3. How often will your magazine come out (you may have asked your audience which they prefer – weekly, fortnightly, monthly)
4. How much will your magazine cost? Why did you decide on this?
5. How will you design the front cover of your magazine to attract the audience? Did your questionnaire help you to find out what your audience finds most attractive?
6. What types of articles will be found inside your magazine? What did the audience say they want to see?

Analysing Double Page Article

1) What does the choice of artist/celebrity featured in the article suggest who the target audience is?

2) What type of language is used in the article? Is the language used informal (e.g. slang that the audience will understand) or does it have a more academic quality? Give examples of words or phrases which are specific to the style of the magazine.

3) What tone does the magazine use to address the reader (as a close friend, a member of an 'in' crowd or an informed intelligent fan?) - provide evidence

4) What style of text is used? What font do you think it is (Sans Serif is commonly used)

5) How is the interview laid out? Are various entry points used and why?

6) How are the pages laid out? How much of the pages are taken up by images and how much by text? How does this reflect the audience?

7) How is the artist/band/celebrity presented to the audience through the images? How is meaning created through the anchorage text? You may wish to carry out a textual analysis looking at mise-en-scene (setting, costume, body language, colour) and camera shot used. Are they posed images in a studio or are they live shots at a concert or sports event?

8) Does the style of the article match the style of the front cover? Is a house style being developed across all the pages you have analysed?

Analysing Contents Pages

Answer the following questions about your chosen contents page

1. How is the information organised so that it is accessible to the audience? What are the main areas of interest that the magazine covers? What does the magazine consider to be important? What does this suggest about the audiences interests and values?

2. Is the readers’ eye drawn to any special features? How is this achieved?

3. What colours and fonts are used? Does this support the style of the front cover? Is a house style being developed?

4. Does the magazine use images? How many images are there? How have these images been constructed? How do they appeal to the target audience?

5. Are there any promotional features? Is the magazine logo placed anywhere on the page? How dominant is it? Does the brand have any other franchises? Are these promoted on the contents page?