Flatplans

Credit: Diane Parkin

In large-scale content design, such as an annual report, magazine or website, a flatplan is used to show where the intended content will fall at a document level. This ensures that there is an even spread of content throughout the publication.

Using a flatplan allows the editor to quickly see where there are clashes between similar types of article and where additional content is required (or where content may need removing).


Different levels of readership can also be established in the flatplan. Content intended for a general audience, perhaps at the section starts, and those parts for a specialist audience, perhaps placed deeper in the publication.

An appropriate structure for the different content types should be provided (using the LATCH model) to offer the viewer multiple levels of understanding in the most accessible way.

Consideration by the designer of what organisational precedents have already been set, and how the viewer might be expecting to access the information based on their previous experiences, indicates the likely choice for an appropriate editorial structure.

Using a flatplan to provide a pattern (or flow) to the communication at document level, allows information at the story level to build up to a series of ‘destinations’ within the document where decisions can be made (using the AIDA model). In laying out content, a designer should work closely with an editor to establish the flow of the material. This helps to retain the readers attention, creates interest in the subject matter and directs the reader through the information to the call to action.

This principle also works in film. To maintain interest, most films have an invisible narrative structure composed of three, five or seven acts leading to the finale. Each builds up to a ‘destination’, generally a point in the film where a main character makes a decision that alters the course of the narrative. This can be expressed as a flatplan of storyboard frames on a timeline.

[Spoiler alert] For example in Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, the key destination points are Capa’s decision to alter course to rendezvous with Icarus I; his realisation that there is an unknown person aboard Icarus II; and his escape from the airlock to detonate the Stellar bomb.

And you can apply the same narrative structural principles to books, TV, Radio, games...