Newsletter analysis

Deyes High School newsletter

In our media lesson we had to annotate two different newsletters from Deyes High School and St Ambrose Barlow, using media terminology and weighing up the pros and cons.
The image of the Deyes High School newsletter is plain and bland, this is due to the lack of colour. The house style of the newsletter is black and white with a pencil line drawing of the school, the image is out dated and looks different as it is today, this gives an impression that the school isn't modern. The pencil drawing makes the newsletter look formal and traditional, reflecting on discipline of the school. The masthead is a serif font which reflects on being formal, but an unorganised feature of the newsletter is that it has three different fonts, for the masthead of 'DEYES HIGH SCHOOL' then for the 'Specialist Science College' and then in comic sans for 'NEWSLETTER 2 DECEMBER 2010', it makes the newsletter seem 'tacky' and thrown together. The newsletter looks like its trying to be traditional and modern with the mix of fonts, but overall it just looks incompetent. The anchorage of the newsletter is good as it has a logo for the specialist science text, this makes it seem like a puff as it is an academic advantage to the school. The logo of the specialist science college doesn't match with the style the school is trying to give off, as the science logo is a cartoon which looks like its from clipart and doesn't look professional. I think if the style matched with each other then the newsletter would look consistent instead of separate. I think the newsletter should have more magazine features such as puffs, mottos, such as the code of conduct, and colour to make the audience want to read it and to make it appeal to sudents. The colour of the newsletter could be the schools primary colours of blue, white and red, this way it gives the newsletter a memorable, recogniseable style.




St Ambrose Barlow newsletter


This is an image of St Ambrose Barlow's newsletter, as you can see there is a significant difference in how the layout is represented and it has more magazine cover features than Deyes High's newsletter. The images are photos and are in colour which gives it a realistic, modern approach to the school, the fact that they are in colour will appeal more to students. Assuming that the primary colours of St Ambrose Barlow is red with the logo in the corner, it gives me the impression that this is the house style. The masthead is eye-catching with the red and black clashing against each other, this arrangement makes the newsletter recognisable. Like the Deyes newsletter, the font of the text is inconsistent, the fonts are different in the motto, article and pug, in which I think it is an attempt of being modern and professional to appeal to young and older audiences. The motto 'Developing potential in a Christian Community' gives the newsletter a statement, hopefully something that becomes embedded in the audiences minds. The copy of 'Joanna's Garden' is clear of its purpose with the headline, since the article is about a student, comic sans reflects on a young audience being sans-serif. Another point about the copy is that the lead is expected to be in bold to introduce the article, but instead all of it is and this seems tedious to read as the lead is supposed to stand out to set the scene. A similarity between the two newsletters is that they both have 'A specialist science college' which acts as a puff,  along with the 'Summer Edition' which could be classified as a sell line.
I think there is room for improvement in this newsletter, I think all the text should be the same font and the lead of the article should be in bold to pull the audience in. The house style of the newsletter is better though as it has a consistent theme throughout of red and black which makes it unique and distinguished.