27 january '10

I missed today's lesson however i have used a class mates blog and written notes to catch up on all notes and work which i missed out on.

Preliminary Task - Introduction.
In today's lesson we were set our preliminary task. For our preliminary we were instructed to "Design a front cover & contents page for a school prospectus". In lesson we discussed many qualities which were expected too be present within a prospectus when applying for a school. The qualities which we expected to be included were:

Target Audience: The Target Audience for a school prospectus is generally aimed at Year 6 or 11 students and their parents, whom are wishing for either themselves or their child to attend The School or The Sixth Form of which the prospectus applies to.

Images used: Within a school prospectus we would expect to see images of Classrooms, buildings, uniforms, students and teachers.

Language: The Language which is used within a school prospectus is usually Informative containing statistics, facts, opinions and quotes of students, teachers and authority figures in the school. The Prospectus may also include quotes from OFSTED and other such body's which have assessed the school.

Content: Within the prospectus you would exspext to find Course guidelines, extra curricular activities on offer, general information about school and tutoring options available in school and other such information which would be of use to the student when deciding whether the school is the one for either themselves of their child.

How you would attract your target audience: All though you have outlined your target audience you must think of what would appeal to them, therefore it would be in the best interest of the school to include smiling students, rewards, upcoming events, celebration of achievements and progress in grades. So to attract the student to choosing your school rather than any other.

Logos/Colours: We must think about house styles, most school would begin by thinking about their School logos from which they would then build upon which colours they would choose to use within their prospectus, of which are associated with the school. An example of which would be with St.Marks the use of Reds, Maroons and Gold. Another logo which we discussed was a good idea to include within a school prospectus is logos of awards held by the school.



In the lesson we also discussed "Secrets of Magazine Cover Designs". We spoke about the things you would address when designing the cover of your prospectus. The vital area which we noted must be taken into consideration were areas such as colour, masthead(logo), dateline, main images, cover lines and the 3 other main areas such as: using the image, power of words, words and pictures. In these areas we discussed the following:

Colour: When deciding upon which colours were correct for our prospectus we decided that it was best to AVOID black, white and green. We took into account that Red is easy to use, although it can become overused. A point which we made sure to consider was how contrasting colours can make the text stand out.

Masthead(logo): A main point of a prospectus is the positioning and presence of the school logo. The school logo should be in the top of the cover, too sell the products. The logo and typeface should be recognisable and unique.

Dateline: This refers to the date or year or which the prospectus applys to it ensure the audience knows that the information contained within is relevant and up to date, by telling them when the prospectus was published.

Main Image: Main image one should cover most of the magazine/prospectus, its the attention grabber it draws readers attention to the articles. The image usually depends on the magazine, some may choose to make the person reliable and some choose to make the person a celebrity making you aspire to be like them, however the person in question with a school prospectus would usually be a selection of pupils/students.

Cover lines: These are usually tasters of what is inside the magazine/ prospectus, such as stories, horoscopes, photos or quotes.

We agreed that when taking images to use within our prospectus its best to take many images so we are sure to choose the "right" image for the piece which we are trying to produce. We also was told it was best and vital to plan which images we wished to use within the magazine/prospectus before actually going out and taking them. We must take into consideration the mise-en-scene and the people in the image. Therefore we must draw up sketches of what the images shall include(stick men are fine here). When planning we must think about framing and camera angles, as choosing the correct framing and camera angle will save you alot of time whilst editing.

When choosing words to include within the document we must think about the language which would be used to advertise and persuade. We must have a balance between professionalism and statistics. Proof Reading our piece is ESSENTIAL, as poor grammar and incorrect spelling will cause us to lose marks on our projects.

We must ensure that the words and images used on a cover agree with each other, there must be no contradiction or any mixed signals given out between the correlation of the two. We must try to avoid leaving images without text to accompany them as this often confuses the reader when trying to understand the connotation of the image.