Design Meeting for the Magazine

After the first meeting with the design team for the magazine design, Sam, our editor, came back with a few points that we needed to discuss.


We first talked about the design of the front cover of the magazine; deciding that we want a simple, iconic, bold design, but we would also like it to have a Matt finish with raised writing. Furthermore, we discussed the image that would go on the front page of the magazine. At first we thought we would go for a graphic and iconic design, that would grab the attention of passers by so they would pick up the magazine.


However, the designers posed the idea of having a student on the front cover. Initially we did not like the idea of having a student on the front cover, as it seemed like a boring idea, that would not grab the readers attention. But, we thought that this idea would work because we could add some effects to the students picture, making the magazine visually appealing.


We then discussed the layout for the individual articles to tell the designers, so they could set up some designs for us to look at.


While this is being done, we will continue to work on our articles.

Interview with Mark Bramwell Article

As the other article was suggested after I had decided the articles I was going to write, I am still going ahead with the interview with Mark Bramwell, the college Principle on his retirement.


As I have not arranged the details with Mark yet, I decided to write up the questions I was going to ask him, so I was fully prepared.


As the majority of my articles were based on political events happening at the time, I decided to ask him questions about the cuts to education and the rise in university tuition fees.


Furthermore, I put in some questions about him long career at Totton College as this was the main subject of the interview.


I will now arrange a time and date for the interview with Mark.

Article 2: 1st Draft

I found this article a lot harder to write than the first, as this time I had to write an article that went against my personal views. To research this article I studied the journalist, Christopher Hitchens, as my article would be written in the style of his work. Christopher Hitchens writes articles designed to stir up a response from the audience. He often writes articles that go against mainstream opinion.


Furthermore, for this article I researched how the university system in other countries works, this was particularly hard to find, as it was hard to find the relevant information on the internet.


However, eventually I found the necessary information and so I was ready to start writing the first draft of my second article.


When I got this article back, after being checked, there was only a few spelling and grammatical errors, which were easily corrected.


I now have the finished article ready for the magazine.

Article 1: 2nd Draft

Taking into account the suggestions that were proposed for this article, I began editing the article.


This was much easier than writing the first draft of the article as all this draft required was more exaggerated opinions.


When I got this article back, all that needed editing was a few minor spelling and grammatical errors. I corrected these, and so now I have the final edition of this article for the magazine.


I will now begin writing the alternative article on tuition fees.

Article 1: 1st Draft

I have now finished writing the first draft of my article on the recent rise in university tuition fees. I found it particularly hard to write this article, as the subject was developing at the time of writing the article, so I always had to keep updating the article on the most recent events. I decided that it would be best to write single paragraphs at a time. This way, I could write about the all the events that happened to do with the rise in university tuition fees. Once it was over, I put all of the paragraphs together to form the first draft of the article.


Once this was together, I read the article back to myself, to analyse it, as I knew it would need a bit of altering, as it was not written in one piece.


When I got my first draft back, after being looked at and checked over, the general comment was that the article needed to be more gutsy and more bold. Furthermore, it was suggested that I should write another article on the rise in university tuition fees. However, this article would be written from an alternative perspective (in the style of journalist, Christopher Hitchens). This article should be written from the view that university tuition fees should be implemented.

Writing the Articles Update

I have now begun writing the article on the recent rise in university tuition fees. I chose to wrote an article on this subject because it is relevant to the audience of the magazine.


Our magazine will be aimed at teenage students aged between 16-19, which will be if not planning, thinking about going on to get a university education. This is an article that the audience will have a big interest in.


I begun by writing a first draft of the article, using the Internet and various news articles (because this is a very recent event) to get research for my article. After getting the research, I wrote the first draft of my article.

Writing the Articles

After discussing the design of the magazine, we now had to begin writing the articles to go in the magazine.


As shown in the minutes (in a previous entry), the article I have chosen to write for the magazines include articles on the recent rise in university tuition fees, also an interview with the college's current Principle, Mark Bramwell, who is due to retire at the end of the current academic year. Plus, possibly and article on the war in Afghanistan.


We now have until the Easter period to write up these articles, then the editor Sam will select the best articles from us to go in the magazine.