Magazine Spreads Analysis

Choosing a type of an article for my magazine spreads was quite tricky as initially I had too many ideas. I narrowed them down to a confessional and a review. I started writing a review about a film called ‘The woman in black’. I thought it was be a good choice because people had different views on the film. However, soon after I found a news article about common medicine containing animal products in them. Since most of my family and many friends happen to be vegetarian I decided to write a short feature on that subject. For my second article I decided to do a confessional because I know a person who went through a bad sailing race and he was happy to talk to me about it. While at work I met a woman who told me the story of her life- This being she found her father after 34 years of looking for him. I thought it was a beautiful story. When I asked her for an interview she said she would be more than happy to. Because I thought both confessionals are great and I couldn't choose one I decided to keep both because there wasn't a limit on how many spreads you are allowed to produce.

To write the medicine article I needed to find out more about the subject. I emailed various vegetarian societies across the country and read an article on the BBC website where I found it in the first place. Most vegetarian societies didn't really want to talk to me on the subject when I send them some questions for them to answer. This is because they were working on an article themselves or they just didn't want to comment or they were just too busy. A person working in one of the societies was nice enough to send me a press release that explained the issue. This helped me write a short feature. My main aim was to interview a vegetarian person, but I didn't want to use any of my friends or family. I know a lecturer at Southampton University who is a vegetarian; however she is the mum of the boy who gave me an interview about his sailing experience so I decided not to ask her. Other than that I couldn't find anyone to talk to about this subject because most people weren't aware of this issue. I managed to get an opinion form a lady who works for Vegetarian Society; therefore I think the article is too Vegetarian Society based unfortunately.

Look wise, I made a delicate background for the article. I thought warm colours would go well with a word 'medicine' and the pictures that I chose for the article, which convey colourful pills as well as vegetarian food. I decided to make headline short and snappy. I made the letters 3D and dropped a shadow behind them to make the article look more affective. To me it looked like this is something you would see in a medical magazine.

My second spread is a confessional interview with Oliver who experienced a horrific sailing race back in 2007. He described what happened that weekend with a great detail. Even though they lost a mast which cost a lot of money the whole crew has raced since and still race till today. It's a sad story with a happy ending- I thought it is a perfect article to go to Daily Sailing or sailing magazine, because it's different, it's a real life story that teaches how to stay calm in situations like that. As a background for this story I chose a picture of a boat that belongs to Oliver's dad. I put slight lighting on it to fade it. I chose a standard 'Times New Roman' font and chose colour navy, which reflects the subject of water, sailing and storm. I managed to get pictures of the crew after the race completion and the boat while sailing and almost falling over. I also tried to get a close up picture of the jot after the race, without a mast, but unfortunately no one took a picture of it afterwards because everyone was still in a great shock.

And finally, my third spread is another confessional interview which is just as good. This is a sort of article that would be seen in Pick Me Up, That's Life or Essentials magazines. Meeting someone that had just found one of her parents doesn't happen every day. In fact, this is the first time it has ever happened to me. Ironically enough it was just after the magazine lecture about confessional interviews. I couldn't believe my luck, as I thought I would never find anyone with a real life story to talk to. This is why I decided to keep both of the articles. Sarah seemed very outgoing and friendly, and very chatty as well. I recorded the interview on a Marantz which I rented out from the University. The interview lasted for an hour. Once transcribed it was 4000 words long and it was very detailed and descriptive. I had managed to cut it down to 1987 words at first and couldn't imagine telling such a beautiful and sad story in only 1000 words. I spent a lot of time editing it to make it sound good and impressive after cutting out the descriptive details. Sarah after knowing her dad for 2 years now still hasn't managed to take a single picture with him. After then interview she said she would do it next time she sees him which was a month later, which is just after the deadline. I can add the picture when I get it, but for now all I managed to get are pictures of her and her family.

I didn't choose a specific background for this article for a reason. The background is white and plain, the font black and standard Times New Roman' because I thought the story was good enough to tell itself that way. It doesn't need any colours in be background or special font to make it look good. I thought the pictures and the optimism of the interview add colour to the article.

Overall, the project was very interesting and different to everything I have done so far. I enjoyed talking to people about these life situations that happened to them, writing about them and making spreads in Fireworks, which is now a new software that I can use.