Flat Plans

I have created flat plans and rationales for each of my pieces of production, to start putting my ideas about things such as layout, colour schemes and images together.

Front Cover

I plan to use a three-shade colour scheme to ensure the text contrasts from the image and stands out. The brightest colours will be used for my masthead and sell lines so that they are distinguishable, and I will use a white background so nothing clashes with it. The colour scheme will be light blues, as although it is generally classed as a male colour, a light sky blue will also effectively appeal to females and connotes fun, excitement and will be eye-catching for my chosen age range.

My main image will be a mid shot of a girl in an invitational pose holding a direct gaze with the camera, encouraging sales by attracting males and females who will aspire to be the same. There will be minimal mise-en-scene to keep the focus on the model who will overlap the masthead, so line usage draws the readers eye here first. She will have dark hair, smokey eyes and red lips giving a sense of identity to my audience and connoting her as unique and mysterious. She will have simple black clothing with maybe some blue nails to tie in with the masthead, which will be on show because of her pose (hands possible on face or in hair)

The language will be quite informal, personal and direct but not too colloquial to seem unprofessional. The sans serif masthead will say 'Beat', the reason for this name is it is relevant to music but isn't genre specific so is open to interpretation, drawing in a wider readership. The banner sell line will include the USP - a free song using a QR code, as young people will appreciate free music and can access new technology like smartphones. The main sell line will be bold and large will anchor the image centred at the bottom of the page to avoid covering the models face, the subtitle will be a pull quote in a more interesting font from the feature to encourage readers by looking more personal. Minimal sell lines will be justified to the left margin and I haven't yet decided on these but plan to try and use alliteration and pull quotes making them memorable and intriguing. The layout will assist readership as the text I want to draw most attention to will be larger or in the centre such as the main sell line.

Contents Page

I plan to use the same colour scheme as I use on my front cover which is blues because this will make it look professional and give it a consistent house style. The layout of my double page spread will be very organised and clear in order for the reader to be able to navigate quickly and easily around it, so the title at the top, contents in a list, and block of images to make it more aesthetically pleasing to my teenage audience. On each image and each article there will be large page numbers so they are the easiest thing to see and can be found quickly at a glance. I plan to put these in either coloured boxes, or circles, to make sure they stand out even more.

The language and register will also be the same as my front cover as many of the sell lines will also feature here so I will make sure the rest of the text matches these. I plan to use a more unusual title than 'Contents page' to make it more interesting and unique however will have to experiment with what looks best, an example could be 'Inside This Issue', in a bold sans serif font to stand out. The other text on the page will be in a serif font like the front cover and much smaller, conventionally with short captions under each article to give description of what it will include. 

Double Page Spread

For my main image, I have decided to keep it to one side of the spread to keep it completely separate from the text and I have chosen the left hand side as this is the side the reader will start with - I would like it to be a striking, bright image which is a full length shot of my model to make her seem dominant, important and attractive. I don't plan to use any other smaller images on the page in order to keep it as simple and professional-looking as possible. Like both of my other products I would like a blue colour scheme so will attempt to incorporate this into my image in some way, either by the clothing or proper that my model has, and will also have my pull quotes and headings in the same colours. For the main copy I plan to use simple black text, or potentially dark blue if it works well, so that the main article is extremely clear and easy to read. I have chosen to use 3 columns rather than 2 or 4 so that the text looks less dense and this allows room for me to include another pull quote to break it up further. For the pull quotes I will use a larger font and a line from the article which is really relatable and attention-grabbing to my audience however I haven't decided on these yet. Although I haven't yet written the article for my double page spread, I have a few ideas to choose from for it which will incorporate interviewing the star (may just include quotes from an interview rather than a question and answer format) and be about a new or returning star to publicise their new material, tying in with my cover model as this is who it will be about.