Flat Plans and Rationales - Magazine Front Cover

For my front cover, I want to replicate a traditional fashion magazine. As you can see from my flat plan, I have shown the variety of articles that I will be adding. I know from professional prints that fashion magazines include a lot of content about the issue on the front cover, this being the reasons that I have visually shown how I will set this out. From my research, I found that fashion front covers usually feature a celebrity or a model who is supporting a particular trend or main subject of the current magazines issue. Due to this, I have featured a figure of how my model may feature on the cover. Like Vogue and Elle my masthead takes a large sector of the cover, creating an effective and professional layout. 

Depending on the picture I take, the image may overlap on the title, as this is a popular technique used quite a lot. I may even add sub images as I have shown on the right hand side of my flat plan. I have done this, to represent the fashion element of the magazine, and to catch my target audiences eye. On the gutter line of the page, I have also added a bar-code as this is compulsory to any magazine. 

Through the use of mise en scene, I want to definitely give off a fresh, girly and professional look. To do this I will not include very flamboyant colours, as monochromes and lighter colours will look more professional for my target audience. The model will show a relatable but professional and fashionable pose, like a smile or a neutral look to represent the fashion industry.

Finally, to give my magazine some regionalism I have added a subhead below my masthead that will link to the North East. I also want to show very clearly that my magazine and ancillary products link to my region. To do this I will include various articles on the cover that indicate ideas and content of the North East so that readers will understand straight away notice that the magazine is regional. Some sell lines and articles may be features like "North East Autumn favourites" or "10 ways to feel more confident" as these small examples are the kind of topics you would see in a fashion magazine, and what my potential audience would enjoy to read. 

Overall, this flat plan will guide me when coming to production, and hopefully will allow me to be more prepared when  going into this process. 

Extension / Aftermath 

I am now writing back here in April 2016, when all of my products and blog has been completed. Here I will explain how my flat plan initially influenced my final piece. In terms of sell lines, I have definitely kept the main idea and plan of their positioning and size as this does resemble traditional and original fashion magazines. I have also kept a similar dominant image to the one I added in my flat plan. However, the image isn't completely a full shot and could be classed as a medium shot, as the full body isn't in vision. I decided to take on this as I didn't want my cover to look stretched and i wanted a more full and detailed vision of my model. The masthead and subhead also stayed the same, apart from how I added a pug or banner diagonally on my masthead so I could display my price, as this is done on the likes of ELLE magazine a lot. One last thing I changed is the side of the page I featured the sub images on, on my flat plan. I simply switched them over so I had more room as this looked more effective on my final draft.