Justiication of layout

As I am sure you are aware at first glance at my contents page that it perhaps does not follow the typical convention of music magazine contents pages. However, in parr with this editon of Spin magazine's contents page I feel I can justiy this as Spin are a well known and well established brand. I also had very good reasons as to why I did not lay my page out in a structured, busy way such as magazines like NME, Q etc. From my preliminary task I learnt that this type of contents page design was not very "me" and therefore I did not execute the page very well. However this is not the only reason. I also felt that this type of layout would fit in much better with the style of my magazine which is much more feminine, spaced out and easy to read. There was a very fine line between this being a contents page and it ending up looking like a front page. To make sure this was clear I used a large bold font, still fitting in with the colour scheme to make it clear this was the contents page. I also used a clear structure to the writing which is layed out similarly to Spin magazines. (I took the conventions from Spin and made them my own, however I made sure that the magazine still worked as a contents page by following these 'rules'. By doing all this I think that in fact I have just about got away with using this, prehaps unusual , layout to my magazine and while I obviously wanted to conform to the typical conventions of contructing a music magazine I also understand how important to the convntions of magazine it is to have a unique selling point. It could be argued that the unique selling point of my magazine is perhaps the unconventional layouts that I have at times used.

Contents completed

This is the image of my photo pre-editing:

To get this effect on my picture I have used artifical lighting created by using the render tool on photoshop:
The reason I have done this is to create a dark background so that it is easy to to read the text on the contents page and makes the photo look less like a front page image.

contents and double page spread research

After Initial Research I now need to research and plan for my contents page. The contents page must integrate well with my front page and in order to do this I will use similar colour schemes and fonts to create a house theme for my magazine. Here are a few examples of music magazine contents pages.








As you can see, although the contents pages follow similar conventions, they are all unique and different. Nme, Q, and Kerrang are all very busy layouts- jam packed with information. I like the fact that alot of information gives the idea that you are getting a lot for your money and shows the magazine has a lot to offer. The layouts are also very visual with a varation of pictures to captivate readers and also so they do not lose interest by being over powered by words. However I feel all of these magazines are very masculine as busy/messy layouts appeal more to men than women. As my magazine has a target audience of women I do not think this type of layout would be suitable. On the other hand, Spin magazine is very simplistic and sophisticated. It is clear that Spin magazine is aimed at females and it is this type of layout which would appeal more to women as all the information is tidy and easy to find. My only issue with this contents is that there is not enough information and there does not appear to be a lot in the content of the magazine.











Further Research
From my previous research I have decided to look into contents pages which use one single image in the background in the contents page to enable me to have a better understanding of how to make this work for my magazine. I think the thing that I will have to be very careful about is that it doesn't end up looking too much like a second front page. However I feel that this concept has the ability to work well in my magazine as long as the construction is well executed. There needs to be clear differences between my front page and contents in order to differentiate the two. Therefore I will now research magazine which have used a similar technique and identify the ways in which they do this.


Double Page spread:















As you can see from the above there is a variety of ways to present and layout a double page spread, however it is important for me to recognise which style of layout will suit my magazine. For my magazine I feel it will be more appririate to use just one image spread across the two pages using text wrap to fit the images in. I think that this will suit the simple and clear layout of the rest of my magazine, also conforming to the house-theme that I have created. From looking at these examples I can see the way a double page should be constructed. All use fairly small fonts which have roman times type of type face. This is used as it is a text which is easy to read and also suggests that it is informative and separates the text from the graphics, titles etc. Many of the magazines also use different colours during the interview to highlight quotes or differentiate between when the interviewer is talking and when the interviewee is speaking, making it clear and coherent.
These things that I have learnt from my reserch I will apply to my own double page spread.