Double Page Spread Analysis

This article is taken from NME magazine and focuses entirely on the artist Lily Allen: when first looking at this page the eyes of the audience would be drawn toward the title of the article first, then to the image of the artist, and lastly to the text.

The positioning of the text, title and image allows the reader to see what and who the article is about, and this would draw the audience in as they would perhaps feel compelled to find out why people say Lily Allen is an “attention seeker” – we would expect this audience to be fans of Lily Allen already, considering her image was used on the front cover of this magazine also, but through the presentation of the article it would be likely that a wider audience would be drawn in. The style of this article matches that which is used on the front cover of this issue of the magazine, which shows us that the magazine is consistent.



The title of the article is the dominant piece of the double page spread, and takes up the most space on the page. The font is the same as the one used on the front cover of this issue of the magazine, and by using it again on this page it shows that the magazine is consistent and organised in its presentation. The style of the font looks like magazine clippings, giving a disjointed, quirky image which could be linked to the personality of the featured artist. Overall, the text used on these two pages is almost entirely on the left-hand side, and the title takes up the majority of the space so that we know this is what we are supposed to be looking at. The main block of text is at the bottom of the page, so this is where our attention is drawn to last; the size of the font itself is fairly small and takes up a very little amount of the page.

(Image used to show consistency between colour schemes and style of magazine)

Colour is used quite sparingly in the article which allows more attention to be given to the text, so that your eyes are not distracted by vast amounts of it, and only the three main colours (red, white and black) are used – this follows the codes and conventions of a music magazine. The image of Lily Allen almost entirely takes up the right-hand side of the page, and she is wearing the colour red which makes her stand out to the reader and draws our attention to her. The shirt the artist is wearing is more masculine than feminine, which could suggest that she is more boyish than girly and that the article could appeal to both males and females: Lily Allen’s dress code also follows the red, white and black colour scheme of the magazine, perhaps to make her seem “normal” or plain, like an everyday-girl to the reader, and her shirt could support this idea in that it is fairly ordinary in style. In the photograph Lily Allen is also looking straight at the camera which connotes that she is strong and demands the attention of the reader. Her body language in the image (i.e. her hands on her hips) gives the impression that she is somewhat bossy and may be someone who has to have her own way. Lily Allen, overall, is presented as a strong and independent female artist through the use of this singular picture, and the plain fashion in which she is dressed suggests that she is not primarily focussed upon her ‘image’.