Double Page Spread Analysis

Magazine Double Page Spreads

Key Concepts and Magazines

The following is my Prezi presentation on the key concepts in relation to magazines. It includes information on codes & conventions, audience, representation and institution.

Preliminary Task

                For my preliminary task I was tasked with creating a front cover and contents page for a school based news magazine. I chose to call my magazine “Haydon Update”. I started out by laying out a rough design plan of my magazine on plain paper, and made sure that the design was appropriate to a school scenario. I then used Adobe Photoshop to create a digital version of the magazine I had drawn on paper. 

I decided to use an image of a girl holding a piece of paper, meant to be a Drama award, to go with the headline “Haydon wins award for Drama department!”  I chose this headline because I thought it would be catchy and rope the reader in. I used the colours blue and yellow, because they are Haydon’s school colours and they contrast well to make the magazine eye catching. I removed the background from the image by using the ‘Quick selection tool’ and then imported the image on to my magazine front cover.

            On my front cover I added another tagline in a badge format, saying ‘Exclusive Mr. Robson Interview’. I thought this would be a good way to get readers immediately interested in the contents of the magazine. I made sure the badge would stand out by adding a darker blue background with contrasting yellow text on it. 

Not only did I have to make a front page, I was also given the task of making an appropriate contents page to go along with the front cover. I duplicated the top banner of my front cover for this purpose, and replaced some information with ‘What’s in this edition?’. I decided that this would be the place where I would advertise the competition to win a pizza part, so I put this above the main image of the page. I thought this would be a good place to advertise it because it would get a lot of attention there, and I didn’t want my front cover to be too crowded.

            The image I used for my double page spread was a boy and a girl both showing examples of the new dress code implemented in the sixth form of the school. I thought this would be relevant because it is a new thing that has been introduced. I made sure to include a website and a feedback email address at the bottom of both my cover and my contents to make sure the readers could have some sort of contact with the magazine.