Flat Plans

Based on the fact that the layout of the pages I have looked at all differ quite drastically, I have drawn up four separate plans that I could use to structure my review page. Obviously when I undertake the construction of my magazine review page the layout will be dependent on how many films I am reviewing and how long each of those reviews will be. 

In terms of layout this first flat plan is very basic. I have modelled the left hand page on the other reviews I have looked at and so visually it resembles quite a formulaic structure. The other page is also quite simple, with four smaller reviews displayed in a tight and symmetrical formation. Unlike the professional magazine pages I have looked at, I have decided to repeat the small print along the bottom on both pages. So the page number, issue number and magazine logo will be something that I publish on both in order to give each page more individuality and equal importance. 

I think that this plan is very contained and accessible to look at, but not very balanced. For example I feel like by dedicating one page to one film and then the other page to four films it will isolate the smaller reviews as inferior and less important. Therefore this plan, although organised and easy to read, wouldn't draw the audience's attention equally to both pages. 

With this second flat plan I attempted to be more experimental, and so I changed the page on the right from my original design to be less organised. I have reduced the number of reviews on this page to three and so this means that there will be more space to make the three reviews seem definitive and engaging on their own. For example the second review fills up half a page and so this would be more visually prominent than having four equally sized reviews on the same page. I prefer this structure because it disperses attention across both pages rather than just imposes one half of the double page on its reader. In terms of professionalism I also think that this flat plan is very much a typical structure of film magazines. 

The next two flat plans are largely mirrors of each other with minor differences, but they are my favourites due to their creativity and demonstration of variety. I have balanced each page with 2 reviews each, and the different reviews are the same size on both pages. This creates a synonymous affect across the double page, but the actual structure of the reviews changes to make each page distinct. 

Ignoring the bigger reviews and focusing on the smaller ones (since this is where the variation occurs) the first flat plan places the film title, star rating and review at the top and then the still shot from the film below, while on the right hand page the review is at the bottom and the image comes above it. The second flat plan reverses this so that the same structure is used, but on the opposite pages. I think that these layouts work best to balance each of the pages and dedicate equal importance to them, so I intend to use this as the basis for my digital construction of the magazine.