Cardinal Bulletin Analysis

I have been asked to analyse the Cardinal Bulletin which is Cardinal Heenan's newsletter, I am going to look at the features of the newsletter that make it attractive and engaging with the target audience and also to point out selected improvements. This will help me understand key features which make this newsletter successful which I can apply to my own music magazine.

School newsletter

The masthead is the first feature that stands out on the page because of the way it is presented. It has been done to look like there is snow on top of the text, this helps the reader to understand that this newsletter has been released in winter and makes the newsletter more engaging. Secondly "bulletin" is in a different colour and italic which makes it different to the first word of the masthead, I think this has been done because the word "cardinal" is displayed in the same colour as the name of the school, so bulletin being displayed differently helps people who don't know understand that this is just the name of the newsletter not the school as well.

Secondly the "Head's Message" down the left side of the newsletter this lets the reader know that the headteacher plays an active role in the school and is involved in what the school does. Also the pictures of the students also emphasizes that the school take pride in their students achievements and that the students are proud of what they can do for the school. Also the black text on the red background makes it stand out more than the other text on the page.

The headline is bold, above the images and this is done so the reader understands that this will be the main topic in the newsletter.

Example of another newsletter

Improvements

The improvements that I would make for this newsletter are:

• I think that the house style of the newsletter is too plain, because it's not an exciting choice of colour scheme and if this was on a shelve in a shop, wouldn't stand out compared to other newsletters.
• The "Head's Message" is not engaging enough for the target audience, because there is too much text. I would start the article off with a drop capital, break up the text more and maybe display another image to make it more eye catching.
• The headline is not eye catching enough because it is only bold black text above the story, I would change it completely by making it bigger, change the colour and by changing the font to make it more attractive.
• Also the title for the second article "Christmas Concert" looks too childish because it is just white with a black outline word art. To make this more engaging I would change the colour of the word art and make it a bit more bigger.