Flat Planning

This is the flat plan of the front cover that I will be creating. I chose to just use one main image to make a statement to the reader that this artist will be highly featured in my product, therefore making it more likely for them to buy my product, I chose to use a close up shot of my main image as from previous research I have found that magazines use this to make a statement to the reader and catch their eye with the use of a powerful image. The model used in my main image will be looking quite feminine to match the genre of my magazine which is pop, also my magazine is generally aimed more at younger females so I want them to be able to relate to the model used on the front cover and therefore feel more inclined to buy my product. I discovered from research that readers prefer when the model is shot in a studio, being able to be styled to fit the genre of the magazine, it allows more focus to be on the model rather than what is around her. The colouring of the image will again be quite feminine, colours such as pink and white being frequently used, however not completely throughout the magazine as I feel this completely shuts out male readers. The masthead is going to be in a simple font as I feel this would make my product look much more professional and shows diversity with my product, although it is generally on a pop slant it will feature much more genres so I do not want to shut out other readers whose favourite style of music may not be pop, I have based this decision on seeing magazines such as Kerrang! and the masthead used their seems to focus on just readers who enjoy rock music. The masthead will be black with the "O" filled in with colour which I have seen on other products and it makes the masthead look very professional but adds some colour to the product also. I have used sell lines with phrases in them such as "Exclusive" and "New Artists Inside!" and "Hot On The Charts!". This will be to draw readers in and make the magazine more appealing, it makes the reader want to read the articles featured in the magazines. There is also a number of other sell lines and the sell line to go with my main image is "Star Of The Year", this makes the reader very interested in what the article is about as it pairs well with the bold main image which makes a statement to the reader. There is also a sky line which tells the reader that there is a free CD included, this again makes them more inclined to buy the magazine as they know that they will get a free gift inside. There is a bar code and price in the bottom right hand corner of the magazine. 

This is the flat plan of my contents page that I produced. It is going to have a simple white background with the same sort of title used on the masthead on the front cover, the simple black font with the "O" filled in. I am doing this as I want my magazine to look consistent and professional throughout. The main articles featured in my magazine will be listed on the right hand side of the page with enough spacing so that the reader will have no problem reading it and will not find the page too cluttered which I found was a problem from my research. Also the "Contents" title is placed on it side, I did this so that there was more room for images on the page so that the reader would not find the page as dull if there was less images for them to look at. Also I feel that the title placed on it sides makes the contents page much more interesting visually to look at, rather than just a typically placed title on the top of the page which I feel is worn out and boring for the reader to look at. The articles listed will again be in a simple black font, subtle on the page and easy for the reader to read, it is simplistic but not so that it will be boring for the reader, just gives the contents page a much more professional appearance. The image on the top left of the screen is depicting an artist representing the house music genre, it is a very simple head shot of the artist, nothing posed or dramatised, simple enough to represent the type of artist this man shown is. The bottom left image is of a smiling girl representing the pop genre, she looks very friendly and quirky which I feel represents this genre well, I am going to make it quite a feminine image also to appeal mostly to the female readers as I specifically want to target them with my magazine. The bottom right image is going to be an extreme close up shot of a girl, mostly featuring their eyeline, I am choosing to do this as I want this to be a very bold, statement image as it is going to be the article featured on my double page spread so I want the image to catch the readers attention and be visually interesting for them to look at. There has specifically been a mix of genres shown on my contents page as I want my magazine to be able to appeal to many target audiences rather than block many audiences who like different music genres.

This is the flat plan I designed for my double page spread that I am going to produce. There is a main image of my artist on the right hand side, taking up most of the page, I want it to be a simple, posed image with no props so that the girl alone will stand out to the reader and it will be a simplistic professional image that shows off the model alone. There will be a quote featured underneath the image of the artist to make the page look more interesting and less boring which it would if it just featured an image alone. I want the image to represent the artist as the pop/mainstream genre that she is part of, so the outfit used will be quite fun and girly, again making the magazine more relateable to the female audience my magazine is generally targeting. The title "Rock or Role Queen?" is going to appear how it is drawn, with red font so that it stands out on the page, and the question mark will be black, this colour contrast makes the title look much more interesting and the quote shown underneath the artist will also be black, however the inverted commas will be red, again the contrast looks much more visually interesting to the reader. There is going to be an introductory paragraph and four columns of text with a quote in the middle of the text, designed the same way as the quote underneath the artist. I took the idea of the enlarged quote from my textual analysis research as I felt it was effective and makes the page look much more interesting rather than a whole page of plain text. The colour of the article again will be black, contrasting to the white background of the page.