A flatplan acts as a miniature schematic of the magazine pages that hasn’t yet been designed, like boxes in a notebook, which might be annotated with the page numbers and concise descriptions. It’s not the time to make a choice of fonts or the precise size of the image crops or the cover information that we will have. We have to figure out what is in each place and whether the magazine has an effective entry point for the reader, whether the reader knows where the main feature is, and whether the reading journey seems to move through the magazine in a logical manner.
A flatplan is so helpful for magazine design because there’s often more to it than a single, eye-catching spread. Magazines are about the sequence. The cover page brings a person to the Table of Contents and the first few pages should get the reader into the flow. The feature spread must have an appropriate amount of space, and departmental spreads shouldn’t feel disorganized. Beginners often work on just one spread and only then realise that they have a lot more article ideas, that there is a repetition of page types, or that there is a lack of balance between long and short articles.
Try to make a flatplan for an eight-page magazine before opening any layout programs. Draw eight small rectangles to represent the pages. Number them one to eight. Mark page one “Cover”, page two “Table of Contents” or “Opening”, pages three and four “Feature Spread”, page five “Interview or Sidebar”, page six “Visual Page”, page seven “Practical Feature”, and page eight “Closing Page” or “Back Cover”. It doesn’t matter what these labels turn out to be; the point is to realize how a certain page total dictates the design quickly. A substantial story takes two pages. A short anecdote may get half a page. You may decide that a really stunning photo needs some room, which means you have to keep the text to one side and not pack them all in.
By doing this exercise, you also prevent the magazine from becoming overpacked with content. If you are putting all the article ideas into a layout all at once, it might seem like you have to make the type smaller, shrink the margins, or use the whitespace to put another caption, pull quote, or image. With a flatplan, you’re able to see that sooner. If an issue has five main features but only eight pages, the solution isn’t to make the type any smaller. The solution is picking the most important feature, or saving the others for a different issue, or expanding the number of pages in the issue.
Also, by using a flatplan, you prepare yourself with a clearer sense of what you need to gather. Once each page has been assigned a job, you’ll have a ready list of draft articles, image libraries, caption lists, credits, and page assignments by section. You’ll know which spread needs a strong opening photo, which page will do better with shorter paragraphs, and where a sidebar can fit in and back up a feature. That will leave you in a better position when you get to the actual design work, since you won’t be hunting around for an image or a quote while you make decisions about the grids, margins, gutters, alignment, and typography hierarchy.
When you check your flatplan, make sure that there are enough different page types, that they all work together in a logical order, and that the reader will know how to get from one to another. If there are two pages of just text after each other, that could feel a bit heavy on the reader. If there are five pages of images that don’t have much text, it will make it look insubstantial. Placing a feature spread too far down can make a promise you don’t have to keep on the cover. And a Table of Contents that talks about one thing while a feature spreads talks about something completely different can confuse the readers. These are editorial design questions, which are much easier to fix when you can see the whole magazine at once.
Your flatplan is good enough once you’re able to sum up the purpose of each page as one phrase. “Cover”, “Table of Contents”, “Feature”, “Interview”, “Practical Guide”, “Visual Gallery”, “Closing Note”. Each page should have a distinct, important purpose that works together with the issue theme. This gives you a good starting point to work with when you design the actual pages. You can set up grids, create headings, crop and place images, and space out the elements when you have a better idea of how the whole thing is going to work together.