Double Page Spread Research

There are many variations of double page spread interviews within magazines. However, most of them use a base idea of a large picture taking up most or all of one page and then the other page for the text. In my opinion this is the best way to go about it because you can then clearly see who the interview is about. Also there are two main ways of writing the interview. It can be a simple Question and Answer session or it can be a flowing piece of creative writing with questions embedded into it. With many of the Question and Answer pages the question text's colour and font is normally different from that of the answer. Also, in most of the double page spreads i have seen so far at least one of the paragraphs (normally the first) has its first letter larger than the rest.

Final Contents Page

Front Page Development

To start with I rendered the original photo using lighting effects to brighten it up and to make it look like it was taken in a studio. I then added the barcode, price and masthead. To get the mast head behind part of the photo I put it onto a new layer and then erased the bit I did not want to see. I then placed the main story's cover line on the front with the fonts I thought would have the better aesthetic value, followed by giving 'Rory' a red drop shadow and 'PHELAN' a red outer glow. I also wrote 'EXCLUSIVE' in box text over the top of the cover line to show the importance of the story. After that I placed two other cover lines along the bottom of the page with blue text and a white outer glow. Penultimately I placed the '50 albums of the Decade' headline onto the cover, using a variety of sizes and colours within the fonts, which is a technique used by many professional music magazines. Lastly I listed, down the right hand side of the front page, various artists who feature in the magazine. This was going to be my final cover, however after some discussion and comments by classmates I decided to change the red to blue, because it complemented the picture better.

Final Magazine Front Page

Magazine Photos

These are the photos I took to use in my magazine. I picked a friend who fitted the look of a popular music artist. They are a bit dim but they can easily be edited in photoshop by simply adjusting the brightness or rendering them with lighting effects.

Name Ideas

The next step i took was to think of some names for my magazine. Because it is a music magazine, the name had to be unique and relate to music. Therefore i looked at this website to find some musical words & thought of a few myself . I then took a poll around the class of what one was best and recorded the results - and here they are.

A-CAPPELLA - 10

BASS - 3

SMASH - 0

AMBIENCE - 2

MAESTRO - 1

ENCORE - 2

When i asked why they chose A-Cappella, these were some of the answers.

"The word just sounds like a nice word when you say it"

"I can actually imagine myself saying 'hey have you read a-cappella lately?'"

"It's unique"

Main Task Start / Magazine Analysis

The first thing I did when i began the main task was looking at various magazines' front covers and analysing them (and stealing some ideas!)

Q Magazine

Producing Company - Bauer Media

Audience - 'Open-minded experience seekers, the Q audience don't define themselves by the music they listen to. Music is an important passion, but their love of music will never be to the detriment of their other passions, such as film, sport and comedy'

Cost - £3.90 for single copy or £46.80 for an annual UK subscription.

How often is it published? - Monthly

Circulation - 100,172

Cover Analysis

Title - 'Q' magazine. The original idea was for the magazine to be called 'Cue' as in the line 'cue the music'. However, so it wasn't confused with a snooker magazine they changed the name to 'Q'. Also as stated in the 200th issue, the producers believed that 'Q' would be more prominent than the original.

Masthead - The Q magazine logo is always in the same location on the cover the top left corner. The colour choice of red background and white text also remains the same throughout every issue so the reader can easily recognise the identity of the magazine. The red background causes the white 'Q' to look more vibrant, appealing to the audience.

Strapline - Though not used on every issue to allow space for the main image, like above, the Q magazine strapline is ‘A different take on music’. This implies that the magazine has its own unique way of displaying music to the masses compared to its rivals. With their target audience being ‘open minded’ this interests the reader as they should be willing to read about a broad variety of musical tastes.

Main Image - The main image is a simple photo of the band Arctic Monkeys. However, there is no indication (excluding text) that they are a band of musicians. The band members are not holding their instruments and no microphones are involved. The expressions on each of the band members’ faces are serious and staring straight into the camera, giving the effect they are staring at the reader. The front man of the Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner, is holding a Q Award trophy hinting that the Arctic Monkeys won a Q Award and that this issue will include an article about the event. Their clothing is nothing over the top and varies between each band member. Yet they all wear something that is considered normal clothing for the reader.

Cover Lines - The top cover line ‘the awards issue’ tells the reader that this issue is a special edition made specifically for the Q Awards winners, which is then backed up by the main text on the front cover ‘And the winners are…’ informing the reader of some of the winners but putting in ‘& more’ so the reader has to look inside the magazine to find out the rest. The cover line ‘Arctic Monkeys, on growing up the hard way’ also notifies the reader that there will be an article dedicated to the Arctic Monkeys including their childhoods up to the winning of their Q award. At the bottom of the cover there are two more cover lines. ‘Oasis’ Last Days: The Inside Story’ suggests the audience will be able to read information about Oasis’ last days never seen before. The second cover line at the bottom of the page ‘Robbie Williams Album Review’ informs the reader that plain and simply there will be a review of Robbie Williams’ latest album. Finally the cover line in the top right corner of the front cover ‘50 best albums of 2009’ suggests an overview of the year’s best albums.

Typefaces - The front cover’s fonts are generally quite tidy, similar to Times New Roman in style. This connotes that this issue of Q will be a formal issue. In the cover line ‘the awards issue’ the word ‘the’ is in italics, inciting that this is the only place to find out the winners of all of the Q awards. The two cover lines at the bottom of the front cover have a font which is quite narrow with a golden outline, disallowing them to stand out as much as the main headlines which have a much more bold and thick font. The cover line ‘50 best albums of 2009’ has a bold, black font excluding the ‘50’ which has a thin, red font and is larger than the rest of the cover line.