Double Page Spread Features

From research I have discovered that the double page spreads mainly involve an interview with the celebrity. I have therefore written an interview between a reporter and the girl on my magazine 'Elle' about her career in the music industry.

Many magazines I read quote the celebrity in a large, bold font throughout the interview. Here are two examples of this from music magazines:

I have taken phrases from the interview which I will present in this way:

“Rihanna can forget it”

“I aim to get 3 million followers”

These short quotations encourage the audience to read the article and make it look more appealing. As in the examples above, I will write the quotations in a larger font and possibly change the colour to make them stand out.

Looking at features of the Double Page Spread

Three of the doube page spreads I researched have made the first letter of eah paragraph a much larger font and the first and third are in different fonts to the rest of the text. This effectively breaks up each paragraph and emphasizes the start of each paragraph. This feature is seen very often in magazine and newspaper articles.

 These are the titles of the three magazines that have main titles. Each of them have different fonts. The 'people think' one is very bold and uses a different size text for each letter; as it is quoting the celebtrity, I believe the bold font reflects the celebrities attitude to what she is saying. The other two titles are in more elegant fonts. The 'got the love' title has joined up letters and is quite fancy while the 'Lady Gaga' title writes the first part of the celebrities name in lower case and the second part in capitals. As the second part of her name is the part which identifies her, the magazine has made it the more important part.

Three of the magazines have a short introduction beneath the title which is in a larger/ bolder font than the rest of the text. Each has also highlighted parts of the text in a different colour to emphasize the most important parts. 

Double Page Spread Research

This magazine has a very bold, obvious title covering the left hand corner of the page, while the image is on the right hand side. The text takes up the smallest portion of the spread. The spread also has an obvious colour scheme of red, black and white which are shown in the text and and the photograph. Each letter of the title has a black box around it and the letters are different sizes, making it interesting and imaginative. The fact that the title is quoting the celebtrity shows that she well known enough to not have her name ast the title; it also entices the reader to continue reading the page to find out what the story is about. Having little text on the page may encourage certain people to read it if they find a lot of text daunting and this magazine would therefore be appropriate for that type of audience.

This magazine shows similarities to the previous one in the colour shceme used and the arrangement of the image and text - both have large titles, the image across one half and then quite a small amount of text. In this magazine, part of the title of the spread is behind the girl in the image which is effective as it takes up space and makes the page more interesting. In addition, this article does not have the name of the celebrity but a title that links to them (the title 'USA got the love' links to her well-known song).

Once again, there is a clear colour scheme used here of red, white and black and the image covers half the spread. However, the title this time is the celebrities name, without any quotations or sub-headngs. One of the main features of this page is the large red 'L' representing the name 'Lady Gaga'. This effectively tells the audience who the article is about if they do not alredy know. The text on this page covers half the spread, showing there is lot more to talk about than on the previous two spreads. As the text is in black, it can be easily read over the white background and red L.

This spread is slightly different in the way it is arranged. The main image is on the left hand side of the right page, while a smaller series of images goes across the top half of the page. While the main image is in colour, the smaller ones are in black and white so as not to take the focus off the main image. The colour scheme is similar to the previous ones (red, black and white) but the colour blue has also been used to make it more interesting and attractive. The name of the magazine is in the top left hand corner of the page but there is no really obvious main title. The title is below the pictures along the top and uses the colour blue to emphasise parts of it. Beside the main image is a bold paragraph which quotes the celebtity. Below the images along the top are thick black lines which effectively seperate the images from the text on the page.

Contents Page Plan

Here is the design for my contents page. I have drawn it out roughly and scanned it in.

Image for contents page

I have decided to used this picture for my contents page. It links to the one on the cover as both show the model with a similar relaxed pose. Furthermore, though the outfit is different, it is the same sort of style, keeping the images linked.


I edited the image using photoshop to remove the background and make the picture look more professional.

I have print screened shots from photoshop to show how i removed the background.

I have then added a plain background.

After editing the image this is my final picture which I will use on my contents page:



Further Research

 After researching various contents pages, I have identified certain featuers which are consistent throughout each magazine. I will therefore use these features while designing my own contents page.

I have cut out the contents list from three of the contents pages. The middle one and right hand one have a main title: 'features' and 'this week', while the two end ones have sub-headings. The left cutting has two headings: 'features' and 'fashion' while the right hand one has 9 sub-headings, seperating the articles more thoroughly in certain categories. All 3 sections show that the articles are listed with the page number on the left hand side. The two left hand ones have written the name of the article in a bold font, making it the most obvious part and a short description is below. Specific colour schemes can also be seen in each of these contents lists. The left is black, grey and blue. The centre one is red, black and gold and the right one is black and yellow.

Here are the titles of each contents page. The left one is clearly the most irregular but still shows similarites to those on the right of it. The left title and 'Q' title are in very similar fonts which are in white with a black background, making it very bold and obvious. Similarly, the yellow title is in a bold font against a black background. The colour schemes I identified with the contents lists are also shown in the titles, making it consistent and all link together. The left title and yellow one are both situated on the top right hand corner of the page while the other is in the left hand corner. However, all cover half the width of the page and are against the edge of the page, which I will also do.

Contents Page Research

This contents page has an obvious colour scheme which consists of black, white and grey. The simple colours make the contents page look sophisticated and suggest it is aimed at young adult target audience. The word 'contents' is written on 3 seperate lines which is quite irregular but looks intersting and attractive. The page is set out in halves, with all the written infomation on the left hadn side. Having the word contents split up fills up space and means the letters can be big and obvious. The models pose frames the words which makes the parts of the magazine all fit together well. The word 'contents' is a bold font while the headings in black are a fancy, more elegant font.

This contents page links with the previous one in the way there is an obvious colour scheme (black white and red). The page uses the rule of thirds: the left lists the articles in the magazine while the second and third sections contain a picture. Below the image is a music review section. The heading is in a black box in a white font which makes it stand out, while the sub-headings are in similar red boxes. This successfully attracts the reader to the important parts of the page and tells them what that particular section contains. The magazine name 'Q' appears twice on the contents page, in front of main titles so it is constantly obvious what magazine it belongs to.

This magazine title page contrasts to the previous ones because there is a wider range of colour used. The most obvious colours are pink, black and white. However, the pink clashes with the red from the 'NME' logo. The page may have been organised in thirds but this is not completely obvious as the left hand column is much narrower; it lists some articles in the magazine. The main section lists the top 10 features of the magazine and has clearly been designed to attract the readers attention - the numbers are bold black while the writing is in pink, linking with the border colour. There are various circles on the page which include extra information which link with the logo circle.

This magazine has a black, white and yellow colour shceme but the main colour is white which makes up the background. This page is in two halves. The left has 3 images including an image of the front cover. There is also a paragraph of information above. The right hand side has 3 more images as well as a list of articles, making up the contents. The same font is used in the contents as well in the title and quotations above which keeps the page concise. The yellow stands out on the page, attracting the readers attention.