Analysis of Magazine Double

Page Spreads:

• Main Headline – a text title that lures in an audience and defines an article.• Strap line/Cover line – a catch line/subheading giving an idea of what to expect

within the magazine.• Drop capital – an initial letter of a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text.• Copy – all of the text on the page.• Pull quote – a quotation from an article that is most commonly in a larger or more

distinctive font.• Captions – a brief explanation relating to an article or an image.• Flasher – a section of text that is enlarged and especially focussed upon, placed

within a shape to stand out.• Rule of thirds – an image or page that should be imagined to be divided into nine

equal parts by two equally spaced horizontal lines and by two equally spaced vertical lines.

• Main image and possibly smaller images – these could be medium close ups (a shot from the chest upwards), a close up (a shot of the head and shoulders to portray more detail), a medium shot (a shot of the hips upwards, capturing body language and some of the background also or a long shot (a shot of the whole scene).

NORMAL CONVENTIONS OF A DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD:

Analysis of Cosmopolitan Double Page Spread:Main headline/Lure: Bold and Black on a white background to stand out and suit Cosmopolitan’s House style of white, pink and black. It is also a catchy phrase using alliteration and ellipsis to lure the reader in.

Drop Capital: Bright pink and goes to 6 lines down to suit house style. Stands out to attract attention.

Stand First: Introduction of article to gain interest of readers so they read further.

Flasher: Bright pink with white writing to suit house style and stand out. Draws attention to this feature of the article to gain interest.

Main article: article about fashion suited to Cosmopolitan’s house style of including fashion articles and it’s target audience. Two columns of equal width and length suggesting a consistent house style with text size and font suitable for readers.

Images: Images of fashion with a main image of a woman (on the left) implying that the page is image led suiting Cosmopolitans target audience.

Caption: Cosmopolitan logo showing a consistent house style and convention of Cosmo.

Rule of thirds: Represents a consistent house style and convention of most magazines. (shown by blue lines)

Quotation marks: Attract attention and keep in style of the house style and suit the target audience.

By line: Common convention of a magazine and suits house style.

Background: Plain white so that text and images stand out and it is not over crowded. Suits house style

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s. Cosmopolitan has 64 international editions worldwide published in 35 languages with distribution in more than 100 countries making Cosmopolitan the largest-selling young women's magazine in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitan_(magazine)

Although, Cosmopolitan had all of these important conventions of a magazine and the house style plus some of the topics could relate to our target audience, we didn’t choose to base our double page spread on cosmopolitan. This is because the common topics featured in this magazine are: sex, relationships, beauty, fashion and health and so documentaries or any other TV shows are not commented on. We also chose not to use Cosmopolitan as a basis because it is stated that the magazine has a “presumed audience of white women”, therefore, the magazine may be too mature for our target audience of teenagers aged 14 – 19 years.

Also looking at the type of fashion that is featured within the magazine it is clear that the magazine may be aimed at a more mature audience of females to what we wanted.

Background Information on Cosmopolitan:

Why we didn’t base our double page spread on Cosmopolitan:

Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles[1]

Categories Female

Frequency monthly

Total circulation(2011) 3,032,211 (USA)[2]

First issue 1886 (as a literary magazine)1965 (as a women's magazine)

Company Hearst Corporation

Country United States(other countries also available)

Language English

Website www.cosmopolitan.com

I gathered all of my information from this source:

Analysis of TV Times Double Page Spread:

Main headline/Lure: white on top of an image to stand out and suit TV Times House style of white, blue and red. It is also a pun understood primarily by the target audience to gain interest.

Caption: TV Times logo and ‘Interview’ caption to keep with TV Times house style and a consistent convention of a magazine.

Images: a main a4 image is used to balance out the text and smaller images with captions are used to attract attention. This keeps to TV Times house style.

Drop Capital: goes down 4 lines to show a consistent house style of TV Times and a consistent magazine convention. In bold black to stand out and attract attention.

Stand first: an insight into the article to engage readers so they will read further.

Rule of thirds: this magazine challenges the conventions of the rule of thirds of most magazines and instead uses quarters but this is still in keeping with TV Times house style. (shown by black lines)

Main Article: it is about Brian Cox’s new TV series on BBC2 called ‘Wonders of life’ suiting TV Times house style and target audience. It is in 4 equal width columns which is a consistent house style feature. Sub-headings are also used as a consistent house style feature of TV Times.

Background: a plain white back ground to let text and images stand out and so the page is not over crowded. Suits house style.

Editor Ian Abbott

Categories TV and Radio Listings

Frequency Weekly

Circulation 336,929

First issue 22 September 1955

Company IPC Media

Country United Kingdom

Based in London

Language English

Website www.whatsontv.co.uk

Although, TV Times had all of these important conventions of a magazine and featured interviews of some TV shows, we didn’t choose to base our double page spread on TV Times. This is because we felt that the house style and the type of topics, e.g. nature programmes, featured within the magazine did not suit our target audience. For example, we would not buy TV Times and so we thought neither would our target audience of 14 – 19 years.

Why we didn’t base our double page spread on TV Times:

TV Times is a television listings magazine published in the United Kingdom by IPC Media, a subsidiary of Time Warner. TV Times currently publishes broadcast programming listings for all major television channels. Before 1991 it published listings for ITV and (from 1982) Channel 4 only. Although every ITV region originally had its own version, there are now four. The magazine was launched in 1955, but became a national magazine only in 1968. Prior to 1968, several of the regional ITV companies - Westward Television, Scottish Television, Tyne Tees Television, Ulster Television, TWW and Teledu Cymru (and briefly WWN) - produced their own listings magazines. The Midlands originally had their own edition of TV Times listing ATV and ABC programmes, but a separate listings magazine in the Midlands called TV World existed from 1964-68 before TV Times went national. Until television listings were deregulated in 1991 the TV Times was the only place where complete weekly listings of ITV programmes could be published.

Background Information on TV Times:

Why we didn’t base our double page spread on TV Times Continued:

It states that “TV Times currently publishes broadcast programming listings for all major television channels” meaning it primarily consists of TV guides. This wouldn’t be relevant as we need more of a gossip magazine, rather than an informative magazine, of what is on TV in order to base our dps on and suit our target audience. Therefore, we didn’t want to use a traditional TV listings magazine. This may also not suit our target audience as with their use of modern technology they would be able to view a TV guide on their TV.

It is stated that “It is known for its access to television actors and their programmes” and “In 2006 it was refreshed for a more modern look, increasing its emphasis on big star interviews and soaps” meaning that these are the most featured topics within the magazine. This would not be a suitable basis for our dps as we are looking at reality TV and not dramas/soaps or actors.

Also the fact that TV Times includes articles of programmes broadcast on BBC2 this may not be suitable to base our dps on as BBC2 has a different target audience “of viewers aged 35-54” to BBC3 , which we are broadcasting our documentary on which is included within our article, as it is stated “BBC Three content is modern, distinctive and relevant “ and has a “core 16-34 year old target audience.” Also BBC2 broadcasts some different types of shows, which are included within TV Times, to what BBC3 broadcasts meaning that this magazine would not suit our target audience. Also the people interviewed such as ’44 year old Brian Cox’ may not be able to relate to our target audience as much as teenagers, who we areincluding within ourmagazine, as Cox isnot as well known byor similar to our ge-neration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVTimes

I gathered all of my information from this source:

Drop Capital: goes down 6 lines to show a consistent house style of Teen Vogue and a consistent magazine convention. In bold black to stand out and attract attention. Uses an informal font to suit target audience of teenagers.

Main headline/Lure: Black and in capitals to stand out. Also it is a pun about modern technology, social networking site ‘Facebook’ and so will relate to target audience.

Stand first: an insight into the article to engage readers so they will read further. Also relates to target audience and their lifestyle situation. However, the use of ‘best friend’ is not gender specific suggesting the audience could also be males but primarily females.

Rule of thirds: this magazine challenges the conventions of the rule of thirds of most magazines and instead uses halves but this is still in keeping with Teen Vogue house style. (shown by red line).

Images: uses one main image on one side of an a5 page. It is partly a graphic and so is perhaps more informal/for a less mature audience, therefore, suiting the target audience. There is less text than image suggesting a mainly image led page which would suit the target audience.

Main Article: it is about falling for a best friend suiting Teen Vogue house style and target audience. It is in 2 equal width columns which is a consistent house style feature. A font used to relate to target audience.

Background: a plain white back ground to let text and images stand out and so the page is not over crowded. Suits house style.

House Style: use of the colours black, white and pink to attract and suit the target audience of, primarily, Teen Females. Also a consistent house style of Teen Vogue.

Analysis of Teen Vogue double page spread:

Extras: the page no. and date are on the far left, the website on the right, the creator of the page vertically on the right and a caption of the image on the far right page. These all show a consistent house style.

Analysis of Teen Vogue double page spread continued:Double double page spread: this article actually extends over onto another two pages but as Teen Vogue magazine is an A5 magazine it is equivalent to an A4 double page spread. This is also a consistent house style feature of Teen Vogue magazine.

Rule of thirds: this also challenges the conventions of the rule of thirds of most magazines and instead uses halves and again is still in keeping with Teen Vogue house style. (shown by red line).

Pull quotes: extracts from article used to gain interest and attract attention.

Drop Capital: more drop capitals to signal new story/view within the article.

Main Article: it is about falling for a best friend suiting Teen Vogue house style and target audience. It is again in 2 equal width columns, a consistent house style feature of Teen Vogue, with again a font used to relate to target audience.

Images: another image that is a graphic, therefore, relating to a younger target audience. Also this image would primarily relate to females.

Images: uses one main image central on the page to suggest an image led page to attract attention and so suits target audience. A graphic is again used instead of a realistic image which could relate to teen vogues younger audience.

House Style: use of the colours black pink and white to suit target audience but also to suit the genre of the article. A consistent house style of Teen Vogue.

Why we chose to base our double page spread on teen vogue:

We chose to base our dps on dps’ from the magazine Teen Vogue because it had all of the important conventions of a magazine and the house style plus some of the topics could relate to our target audience. Therefore, we decided to base our dps on teen vogue. This is because the common topics featured in this magazine are: fashion and celebrities and it is also stated that the magazine “offers information about the latest entertainment and feature stories on current issues and events”. Therefore, this would suit our target audience as it is current and suited to what they would want to read about. Furthermore, the presumed audience for this magazine is said to be for “teenage girls” which is also why we chose to base our dps on this magazine as our target audience is the same and so this magazine style would relate to them.

Editor-in-chief Amy Astley

Categories Teen magazine

Frequency Monthly

Publisher Gina Sanders

Total circulation (2011) 1,029,336

First issue Gwen Stefani (February/March 2003)

Company Condé Nast Publications

Country United States

Language English

Website www.teenvogue.com

Background Information on Teen Vogue:“Teen Vogue magazine began as a version of Vogue magazine for teenage girls. The magazine is published in a smaller 6¾"x9" format, allowing it a unique cover size and more visibility on the front of a magazine selling shelf, and some flexibility getting into a digest size slot at checkout stands. The magazine also has an associated store concept called "The Haute Spot" based at The Westchester shopping center in Westchester, New York.”

It is stated “the magazine follows the basic tenets of teen magazines, although” [the magazine] “also features more serious topics such as discussions about teen pregnancy.” This is another reason we chose to base our dps on teen vogue as it discussed teen pregnancy which is the basis of our documentary that will be featured within our dps. Therefore, this magazine would suit what we are trying to convey and we now know the topic of our dps would suit our target audience.

Why we chose to base our double page spread on teen vogue continued:

I gathered all of my information from this source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Vogue

We also chose to base our dps on this magazine as after doing research we came across this in the article analysed on the previous pages. This article is commenting on an MTV reality TV show and, therefore, we knew this would be suitable for us as, although we are using BBC3 instead of MTV to broadcast our documentary, they both broadcast similar ‘teen pregnancy’ shows and so this would suit our target audience. Also the fact that the magazine looks at reality TV shows is suited to us as that is what we are looking at also within our dps and again we know this would be suitable for our target audience.

Another thing that made us decide to base our dps on this magazine was because the house style is suitable for our target audience, of females aged 14-19 years, as it uses pink/red, white and black which are colours stereotypically related to females.