THESE are "dummy" front pages of the two free newspapers which will battle for London's young readers.

Associated Newspapers, the UK publisher of the Evening Standard and the free daily Metro, on Wednesday launched it's freesheet, London Lite.

Its international rival, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, publisher of The Sun and The Times, will publish the first edition of thelondonpaper on Monday.

Both freesheets will have a distribution of about 400,000 and are fighting for the highly sort after market of commuting young professionals and students living in the capital.

On Thursday, thelondonpaper's website briefly published a dummy front page of its brightly coloured newspaper.

However, the dummy front page was quickly taken down and the website, www.thelondonpaper.com, was replaced with a hold page only displaying the purple masthead and contact details.

Purple seems to be a common theme, appearing in the masthead, the background of a story and a sub-heading, while strong colours are in the pointers at the top of the page.

Stories about delays to the new Wembley Stadium and rock singer Pete Doherty's on-off relationship with supermodel Kate Moss dominate the page.

The newspaper's online editor James Law said the dummy front page was "months old" and indicated it would look different on Monday.

Editorial assistant Lucy Holdsworth said: "It's a closely guarded secret and we were trying to keep it under wraps."

The magazine appearance is in stark contrast to London Lite's brash tabloid style.

The Brand Republic yesterday reported that media buyers had given a "lukewarm" reaction to London Lite.

Universal McCann head of press Dan Pimm questioned whether the paper's design was attractive enough to attract a younger audience.

"It's got the look of a more traditional newspaper rather than a young go-getting type of paper. It's got younger stories than the Evening Standard but they need a greater point of difference from the Standard," he said.

"It's OK. I think they haven't brought out the paper they wanted to. They wanted to bring it out in 2007 but had to act earlier because of thelondonpaper. I think they will make a lot of changes over the next few months."

The free newspaper war won't only be fought on the streets of London, but also on the internet.

Both newspapers will encourage reader interaction, while This is Local London has also launched it's own online forum The London Blog.

Associated Newspaper's London website, www.thisislondon.co.uk, is heavily entertainment focused and it appears thelondonpaper will have the same emphasis with sections to include "gossip", "love", "style", "culture" as well as "thelondonnightout" and the "thelondonnightin" guides.