School Magazine Planning - Colours/Background

The images above show the stages in which i developed my colours scheme for the background of the front cover for my school magazine. I have chosen to base my school magazine around a school specialised in science and technology. For this, i want a colour scheme that matched that theme. I first selected 8 basic colours that could be used, a few of which are taken from my current school's logo.

I then asked my target market which colours they preferred. My results show in the 2nd image show that they selected colour number the 6 the most, closely followed by colour number 1,4 and 8,(all of which had equal amounts of votes.) Still undecided which colour would be suitable, i placed the logo on top of the logo. The results came back similar to the first time, as 5/10 people i asked preferred colour number 6 because it worked well with the current logo.

I began to experiment with different types of backgrounds using this colour.
Background number 1 is just a bland background using one constant colour. Although this placements of symbols easier, it was also rather dull and boring.
Background number 2 is a basic gradient from my selected colour into white, trying to blend the background together, so that when the piece is put together, it will blend throughout creating a flow.
In background 3 i attempted to integrate a basic pattern using the software Macromedia Fireworks default patterns. As the school was a scientific school, i attempted to create the idea of space, while using just two different colours that did not contrast to much, yet worked well together.
Sticking to using patterns, a "spotlight" effect was used for background 4, in the hopes that the theme 'light' might integrate with science.
After asking my target audience, they chose background number 3 to be the most effective. This will be the chosen background i will develop and continue planning.