Flat Plans

I have designed two front covers for my magazine, a contents page and a double page spread.
These are the two front covers that i designed. I decided to use the second one because I think it is more appealing, easy to follow and the name of the magazine stands out. Because 'Shockwave' on the first magazine is written going down the page some of the letters wouldn't be seen if it were placed on a magazine stand and would get noticed as well. The title of the magazine is written in spiky, red letters to match the word 'shock'. I drew a vinyl to represent the letter 'o' to make the title look interesting. This relates to my target audience because they may remember buying vinyl records or listening to their parents vinyls. I used a strap line written in capital letters below the name of the magazine. The strap line gives the reader a preview of one of the stories in the magazine and will hopefully gain their interest enough to buy the magazine. This is similar to the front cover of Mojo - although their strap line is at the very top of the page. The word 'exclusive' will also be appealing as it something the reader won't be able to read anywhere else. The box on the right side of the page is where the photo will be placed. It takes up nearly half of the page to grab the readers interest. Photo's also take up most of the page on Mojo and Q Magazine. The photo I will take will be a long shot. The person who feature on my front cover will be wearing mainly red and black to tie in with the colour theme. I think this will be more appealing to my target audience more than lots of different bright colours as that is associated with children and teenagers. Across the photo there will be a large caption linking to the image and the people featured in the image. This is another reason why I chose not to use the first front cover design because across the page there is information about Bon Jovi, yet the photo would have been people who have nothing to do with Bon Jovi, meaning the caption would be irrelevant to the photo. I used two main sells, they'reboth in large letters to stand out and both are written in different colours to show they are separate from each other. Each will have a small, relevant photo next to it. I think these sells will be stories my target audience will want to read about because people who are in their late 20's or older will remeber the music from the 80's as it was what they grew up with and listened to. I decided to use the information about the music quiz prize as my main flash to make more people interested in buying the magazine to be in with a chance of winning £1000. I decided not to place a bar code on the front cover because I didn't want it being placed over the photo and there wasn't enough room anywhere else on the page without it overlapping something. Instead the bar code would be place on the back page of my magazine.

This is the contents page I designed for my music magazine. 'Contents' is written at the top of the page and takes up the width of the page. I left it white so it doesn't distract the reader from the rest of the page. On the right side of the page there is a box that takes up roughly 1/4 of the page. This is where my photo will be placed. I will place a caption at the bottom of the photo to explain who is in it and what they are doing. The person in the photo will be the same person who was on the front cover. The sub-headings are all written in the same basic font as 'Contents' to link all parts of the page. However, they are written in two different colours to show the reader the separate parts of the magazine. The colours I used were the same as the front page to create a theme throughout the magazine, this will again appeal to my target audience more than using several colours as it is not distracting them from the information on the page. Below the sub-heading I wrote the page number and title of the article so the reader can easily find what they want without flicking through the whole magazine. Below I have written a small sentence to explain what the article will be about. There is a line under each sub-heading so it is clear where one starts and the other one ends. This is very similar to the contents page of other magazines I analysed, suggesting that this is an affective layout and popular amoung the target audience. However, the word contents was placed at the top left of the page in Q Magazine next to their logo and was written much smaller, it also had a different coloured background from the rest of the page. On the Mojo contents page the word 'contents' isn't used, instead they place 'Mojo' at the top of the page.

This is my double page spread. It is a time line of Michael Jackson's album releases. The title 'Michael Jackson' is written largely across both pages. The background will be black and all writing will be back when making the pages in In Design. The lettering used in the title is the same as what was used in one of Michael Jackson's books. It is simple and links in with the Michael Jackson theme. Below the title there will be a sub-heading explaining what is featured in the article. I have used three columns to presents the main body of text, as this is is a conventional layout that allows the reader to easily navigate their way across the page. I placed the text into boxes rather than paragraphs to show the seperation of different dates and pieces of information. In the bottom left corner of the left page there will be a small photo that i have taken of a Michael Jackson album. A caption will be placed underneath the photo to explain what album is in the photo. The right hand page will be taken up by a large photo of Michael Jackson that I will take either from a book or poster. I intend the photo to be in black and white or in dark colours to match the black background on the other page. I think this will appeal to the reader because black and white is quite stylish and different from typical photos in a magazine that are normally colour. At the bottom of the page in red writing there is a pull quote taken from the article, giving the reader another insight into what will feature in the article. It is in red to stand out against the dark background.