My Double Page Spread Design

The flat plans below are an indication of the design for my double page spread...




The pencil indicates where white text will be. In the image collums I am going to have full body shot pictures.

I have not flat planned my contents page as it was hard to find contents pages of magazines with in my genre and target audience. Eg; Top Of The Pops don't have one and others too. So I am going to create my contents page as I go along.

My Front Cover Design

Above is the flat plan for my front cover, this gives me an indication of how I'm going to design my magazine. I have taken lots of inspiration from Top Of The Pops and other magazines.

Evaluating a Contents page of Shout Magazine

Top Of The Pops magazine doesn't have a contents page and as I have established, it's the only music magazine for it's audience. So I researched some magaazines that have the same target audience, I chose 'Shout' magazine. I went on http://www.marketing.dcthomson.co.uk/marketing_description.asp the publishers of shout magazine to find the audience range... 'Aimed at 11-14 year old girls, Shout is ideal for girls who love celebrities and fashion!'

http://www.abc.org.uk/ catergorises both magazines as 'teenage'.

The contents page is quite simplistic compared to how I'd imagine a Top Of The Pops magazine to look like. This because Top Of the Pops uses bright clashing colours to attract attention, where as the contents page and front cover of Shout magazine use a more limited pallette of colours and the images provide most of the colour on the page. Shout suggests different connotations to Top Of The Pops and perhaps attratcs to an older auidence.

The main title of the page is 'what's insdie?' this is a more informal way of putting 'contents page' which is in most adult magazines. There are three large images neatly surrounding the title. The first is of a model wearing fashioable clothes, this represents the fashion/beauty elements in the magazine. The model is pouting and looking away from the camera this makes her appearance look cool and casual and draws more attention to her outfit rather than her face. The next image is of 'Mitch Hewer' an attractive actor who stars in 'Britania High'. Which is a popular English TV show based on High School Musical. It is a close up shot of Mitch and he has direct eye contact with the audience, so the reader can connect with him and want to find out more. He has a serious facial expression which can be percieved as 'sexy'. This image represents the attractive men which can be found in the magazine. The third image is of 'Britney Spears', Britney is smiling and looking very glamorous and polished, the background suggests she is at an awards ceremony. This image represents celebrities and gossip.

Smaller images scattered below the Britney images are of beauty products, which is another popular interest of the audience.By each image is a page number, suggesting that these are the key features and the reader is able to find that page very quickly.

The page information is catergorised in sections related to context. The page numbers in the sections are in cronilogical order. The page numbers are a bright pink which is very clear to read against the white background. The titles of the pages are very suited to the target audience. Eg; 'Life's a Mitch', 'Shoppin' Till They're Droppin'!, '100% Hot!' etc. The play on words add interest and share a sense of fun. Most of the titles end in ! or ? or ... this punctuation emphasises and creates excitement.

There is information at the bottom of the page about subscriptions and mobile phone services, which is in very small font and doesn't distract form the main features of the page.