Flat Plan Rational

The Magazine 'The Mercernary' is a article that covers Rock/Metal Genre of music, the magazine tries to bring in an audience by using a new alternative style of design and a fresh wording to create the , this hopefully will bring in customers at various levels of loyalty, from those who buy it once every so often to those who subscribe to the magazine, these are my target audiences, which are ranged around the ages of 15-29/30, but I also bare in mind that there might be a spontaneous audience of 13-15 and at a possibility of 30+ but this prediction covers huge ground, and depends on the customers themselves, this prediction furthermore allows me on where I can market my magazine and how to attract these age groups.

The Cover

The cover is based on a different stylised version of Kerrang! With a new layout but with some recurrent features, and new colour scheme, and creative new selling points that should aspire to reach my audience. This is to entice the reader into wanting to purchase my magazine.
I have chosen the colour scheme to be Red, Black and Purple, as this is an abstract colour scheme and makes the graphics and art look fluid like instead of sharp and bold, but this will attempt to be eye catching.
I have decided to change from the singular model on my flat plan, to have a main image of the band in total, and it represents all of them instead of singularly, to make them stand out I thought that laying them in a diamond shape, like in traditional music magazines with the lead singer in the front. But to make sure that there is no wasted space left I use a light gradient to add graphics and make it look more professional. To emphasis the magazines youthful exterior I have used Capitals on one of the selling lines to draw the attention in to our audience further. I have used interesting language to further entice the audience.


The Contents Page

The Contents Page is laid out to be organised and easily understandable. I have designed this page to look like Kerrang! style but this will change slightly and adapting it to look custom but still professional. I have however decided to keep the red, black and purple colour scheme as I find this effective, and eye catching. The Text will be coloured in white though to make it stand out more. The contents page is divided into two different section, the main story and the second main story, and then the 'This Week' table, this helps structure the contents of this magazine and making it easier to navigate. At the top of this page the masthead sits on top to show the magazine, and directly underneath is the contents page.
also at the bottom right hand side I have debated whether to put a small piece of advertisement or just to make another story. This contents page wasn't as good as I hoped it to be and this is why I am predicting slight changes on the final product.








The Double Page Spread

My double page spread consists of a structure where the different texts and images are combined and share the page in a neat layout that both looks professional and interesting. The design will feature the members of the band in the top left corner, followed by two sections of text where the information gathered by the interview, at the bottom of this page, there will be a quote from one of the band members where the colour of the quote will be the same as the border, perhaps a light navy blue distortion around the edges of the magazine. On the second page there will be a photo taken at one of their gigs that shows the importance of the next section, which will be a review on the gig, in two text boxes surrounding the image. under this there will be a quick brief on one of their most recent album, this is where I'll scan the image of the album and reference their permissions.
The Title of the Band will be in the same font as there album covers and the same colour or near identical, to get a feel for the band further, the background of the double page spread will be white and text boxes will be clear. if this is two bland I will add a light gradient to add to the effectiveness of the magazine in whole.



Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel that this will be an effective magazine, that will suit its purpose and look professional whilst doing so, but I don't feel entirely happy with my Flat Plan as I feel it doesn't represent as many of the ideas that I planned. but it gives a basic feel for the magazine layout and helps keep structure to my project.