Planning Task 7 : Website Homepage and Linked Page

For my header, I will make sure that my masthead is central so that the audiences attention will be immediately drawn to the masthead creating a shared brand identity for my magazine and website. The linked sections of my website will be below the masthead with only the subscribe, sign in and search on the same level as to keep it a central point within the home page. The masthead will be in a bold, sans-serif font in order to make it stand out from the rest of the typographic elements which will be in a serif font to further emphasise the masthead and draw an audience's attention to it. To further imprint this brand identity, unlike my newspaper, the masthead will remain the same colour on my website to familiarise viewers with it, however the colour of the website will change according to the focus of the magazine as this will help to improve the cohesion between the two products rather than making them seem distant from each other. While the changing colour scheme may make the website not as recognisable, it will keep it interesting for the viewers as it isn't constantly the same if they continue to revisit the website. The search bar will remain prominent in the top left of the page as it is the recency optical area and therefore if a user is searching for anything specifically on the website they will be able to find it easily. Although this may decrease the overall time someone remains engaged with the website as they are not actively searching for the product they want, the opportunity to easily find the stories they're interested in will help them to engage with other similar coverlines.

The homepage will include content linked to the current magazine edition with not only more photos to accompany the ones used on the front cover and contents page but also some more information into the stories. This will include the coverlines on the front page as well as some of the other sections mentioned on the contents page to make the product cohesive between the different areas. The images related to the current front cover and main coverline will be towards the top of the website as users may be on the website to specifically search for that story and therefore it would be helpful to quickly engage them with more information about the main coverline. The main coverline will feature an image reminiscient of a main image, however seperate from the magazine as to show the differences between the two products while still focusing on the same subject. This way users will be intrigued by the main coverline and wish to read more into it and spend more time engaged with the website. The other coverlines will come below the main coverline and may feature accompanying images, however they are more for the viewers to read if they are interested and their placement will make them focal as to draw the readers attention to them. 

My featured page will be an 'Featured artists' section where more information about the featured artists (both the main coverline and other coverlines) is available so that audiences are able to become more familiarised with these artists that may not be as recognisable as other major pop artists. This would increase the draw to the website as while the magazine would feature information relating to the story, lots of information about the artists would be available to the audience through the website, which would then be teased in the magazine to increase the likelihood that audiences go from one to the other. This section would feature my multi-media element of an interview with the featured artist of my 2nd edition (Cora Reed) in which more personal questions would be asked for the audience to quickly familiarise themselves with the artist possibly increasing the chance that they pursue more about her music.

Mock up of a possible website main page for my magazine