Music magazine double-page article planning



Here are a few sketches of possibilities of what my double page spread could look like. I have tried to make four completely diffderent layouts, as this would give me the opportunity to test out a wide range of layouts.


My first double page spread is situated on the top left hand side of the page. I have come accross this layout when doing my music magazine research. This is quite origional, but simple. The title of the double page spread will appear in the top left hand corner, kept well away from the images and text, as this will the page to look quite organised and wont distract the reader. The title will be in a large bold font, as this will help to grab the readers attention and pull them towards the page.
Two images will appear on the left hand side. I have decided to do this as, i believe that this makes the page look more eye catching.
The text will appear on the right hand side of the image in columns. This will allow the images to contrast with the text, making the page feel sophisticated. 
The advantages of this double page spread is that is looks well planned out and organised. However, this draft does also carry some disadvantages, such as: it looks quite boring and the page altogether has no sense of flow and rhythm.


My second double page spread is placed on the top, right hand side of the page. I quite like this one as it looks proffessionally layed out. The title of the article will be placed accross the top of the page. This will make it stand out and it will help the reader to get a taste of what this article could contain. The text will be in the largest font on the page, as this is the most important feature.
The two columns of texts will be surrounded by an image on each side. This allows a sense of continuity to the page and helps the reader to dijest the information, quite easily. If i placed an image then a text then another image, this would distract the readers, and will also cause confusion. From my target audience research, the majority of the people asked preffered if the image on the double page spread could stand out from the page, but in this case i wont be choosing this draft to develop as it doesnt meet my target audiences choice, and they will be the ones reading it, so i will have to make it appealing to them.


My third double page spread is on the bottom left hand side of the page. By looking at this darft you can staright away tell that it looks quite professional and that i ahev made a lot of use of the white spaces. This darft is quite different to all the others as a title wont appear on the top of the double page spread, however a border of image will. This will allow the two pages to tie together quite nicely, setting an atmosphere to the page. In my music magazine double page research, there was an article which had a border of image accross the top of the two pages, i thought this looked quite good, making the page looks elegant.
The title of the page will appear just below the border of images, and kept towards the left hand side, this is so that readers don't feel like there is too much going on, on the page at the same time.
A column of text will be placed on the left hand side of the page. Then next to the column on the opposite side, there will appear a small column of text that haas been taken from the atricle and written out in a bold font. This helps the page looks more proffessionl. By having this block of text in bold, the readers will staright away assume that it's quite important as it appears to lift of the page.
An image will be put right in the middle of the two pages which will help the page to flow evenly. If i decided to place text in between the break of the two pages, this would make it a lot harder for the readers to read what it says, so by keeping an image, it won't be so hard to make out what the `item` is.
On the right hand side of the image, there will be another block of text. This helps to complete the page and leaves the article in much more of a serious tone.
Overall, i think that my third darft looks very professional, however i think that there is a lot going on at the same time, which in my opinion, makes the page look childish.


Finally, my fourth double page spread appears to be on the bottom right hand side of the page. I believe that this draft is the best in comparison with the others as, there is just enough information required and doesn't looks majory distracting.
The title of the article will be placed more on the right/middle of the page. This has been done so that the image that will appear on the left hand side will take up just less that 1/2 of the page. This image will be a full-shot so that readers will be able to visually see what the actor/actress/band/artist are wearing. The first few letters of the title will most likely to be touching the head of the person on the image. This will make the mage look very professional as a lot a magazine companies, like overlapping of words on images, so this is something that i would like to take on board.
All the text will be placed on the right hand side of the image and on the second page. This will help to divide the image and the title from the text. Inbetween the texts there will be a block of the text taken from the article and written out in bold. This will show the imaportance of a certian part of the article.
I am going to go with this draft as my final layout for my double page spread as i think it looks more appealing. And also when i was doing my target audience research, the majority of the people surveyed, thought that the image should stand out from the text, so this is exactly what this draft is doing, allowing the image to pull out from the page amongst the text. Whereas the images on the other three drafts don't seem to grab the readers attention, as they are blended in with the texts.

 

  

This is a computerised version of how i present my double page spread.