Planning and evaluation of the article

This is a double page spread design taken from the dance music magazine "mix-mag". I have chosen to use mix mag because it is a magazine of the same genre and target audience as the magazine I am creating. The first page element which stands out to me is the fact that the article, which is interview format, has a large picture of the artist being interviewed which takes up a whole page. This is an element used by the writer of the article to obviously show the reader who is being interviewed and also put a face to the person they are reading about. The large picture is also accompanied by a small caption which takes a small passage of text from the article. This caption, i have noticed whilst researching double page spreads, is usually something an artist has said throughout the interview which is either inspiring, informational or shares an opinion. Usually a caption is put into place to make the reader want to read on, therefore I should consider what part of my double page spread to use which follows the same format as other articles i have previously seen. The text almost takes backstage in this article because it is very picture orientated. This is possibly because of the fact that the artist pictured is considered to be attractive or simply because they are a big star in the industry. The language takes an informal tone and is easy to read and digest, without too many facts or polysyllabic phrases clumping up the article. Phrases such as, "She invites mix-mag into her mini studio, hardware hogs most of the space", this is a phrase which i feel follows an informal approach, this allows the reader to feel more comfortable when reading it. The interview follows an informal approach and is not a Q&A styled piece of writing, it is unstructured and takes the form of more of a conversation then a formal interview. This could potentially allow the interviewee to be more at ease and reveal more information to the interviewer.

The next magazine double page spread i have analysed is again taken from an earlier issue of mixmag. It follows the same format as the other article I looked at from the same magazine however its picture focus is even larger then the earlier double page spread. This specific article is based around a two artists and dosen't focus entirely a specific artist. The language does take a more formal approach due to the fact it is based on being informative therefore dosen't use the informative interview tone as the other article. It dosen't contain captions like the previous article and its section of texts are smaller. I believe mix-mag as a magazine focuses more on image and presentation then the actual wording within the article.

I have started to consider ideas for my double page spread, i conducted a small survey within the class and my group of friends to aid me in deciding what format of article to choose. I settled upon the Q&A format with the interviewer asking the questions and the artist (DJ Fortune) answering them. The reason i have chosen to do this is not only because i was recommended to through my survey, but also because when reading magazines such as music magazines, if i see a star on the cover I want to read the article to learn more about them. My opinion is that the Q&A format is the best type of article to adopt when looking to find out information about an artist. My language choices will be informal because I want the Q&A to feel more like a conversation and conservations are not usually conducted through using formal language. I plan to do some drafts of my article then get feedback through asking the same people who recommended me to choose this type of format. I will then use the feedback to make additional changes to the draft before producing it.