Planning: Hand-drawn Mock up of Magazine Contents Page

HAND-DRAWN MOCK UP OF MAGAZINE CONTENTS PAGE

When creating my mock up of my magazine's contents page I took many aspects into consideration including fonts, colours, images and overall layout of the page. From carrying different processes before starting the design of my contents page such as various different research and planning stages, creating my mock up was made much simpler. I was also aware of what I should be including on the page and what I should be avoiding.

I first started to design my page by looking at the page layout. After looking at existing contents pages of regional magazines, I had a very good and clear idea of how I wanted my contents page to look. I've designed my page to have a main column on the left hand side of the page that will contain the titles of all articles that will feature within the magazine and a description of what they will be about. I plan to lay out the information by labelling them by the page numbers in which they will feature on. On the right hand side of the page, I have included an editors note in the top corner. Many magazines contain these within their issues, either on the contents page or somewhere within the first couple of pages on the magazine. I wanted to include this to make my magazine seem more professional and authentic. Below the editors note I plan to include images that help will support some of the articles that are described on the left of the page.

After looking at how I want to layout my contents page I then began to look at how I could use colours and fonts on my page. I plan to have the main text body in the same style of font but included the titles of the articles in a bold format to show the difference between the texts. The 'Contents' title will be placed in a large and bold font at the top of the page. I plan to have the title in a similar font to the one seen on my front cover in order to carry my theme throughout the magazine. I also want to include a background image or colour on the page in order to make it seem brighter. I will use either an image or plain background depending on how busy my page will look when completed as I don't want it to look overbearing.

Completing this hand-drawn mock up of my contents will benefit my greatly when I create my final piece as I know exactly what I need to include on the page. It will also be more straight forward as any changes  to the page have already been made so there will be no need to back track. From completing this task I feel confident and prepared to start putting together my final piece.