Double Page Spread Analysis #2 - Research

This double page spread is based around Buck Owens, a popular American musician from the around the 1960’s to 1980’s. His music was a country style that incorporated elements of rock and roll. In 1959 he released a single called “Under Your Spell Again”, which is also the title of this article, this would appeal to his audience, and by making this the title of the article, Classic Rock magazine is drawing in a wider audience than they may usually attract.

The article is mostly in black and white, with a large image taking up over 2/3 of the page. This makes the red used for the title then more obvious than the rest of the page. The font used is a serif font and is the same as the drop capital on the beginning of the body of text. Red has symbolic signs that relate to power, and by making the title larger than the rest of the text and in the red colour it draws the reader in and makes them wonder what the rest of the article will include.

Reads: To celebrate the release of Buck 'Em! The Autobiography Of Buck Owens we present, in association with Hal Leonard/Backbeat Books, extracts from the king of The Bakersfield Sound's essential memoir.

The lead of the article, written under the title, describes what this double page spread will be about, in this case, it is releasing exclusive extracts from the autobiography of Buck Owens. Written in bold is Owens’ name on the second line, instantly this stands out from the text and allows the customer reading the article to know who the DPS is about if they don’t recognise the picture. Using the bold font makes the two words striking and more noticeable in comparison to the rest of the text.

In the image, the artist has been styled looking down at his guitar, making him seem like music is the most important thing to him, Dyer can be applied here as he states ‘a star is an image’ and by staging this, the photographer has created an image of Buck Owens that his audience and the magazines audience will like to see. The black and white photograph allows the genre of vintage to be clearly seen and the use of the black and white image next to a body of text in black font surrounded by a significant amount of white space allows a synergy and house style to be created on the page. This style also allows the large red title to be striking and appealing.

The black and white image is very simple, the background shows what looks like the inside of a theatre and there is a man in a white shirt walking through, this is all blurred out however as the camera has been focused on Owens, perhaps suggesting that now he has released his autobiography, the focus will be moved from his band as a whole and more onto his life outside of the band and his experience in the music industry.

How this research has influenced my ideas and creativity:

This is only the opening pages of the double page spread; however, I think as the start of an article, this is very effective. There is not a large amount of text on the page as the image and title take up the most amount of space, even then, in the space left there is only a short paragraph. This allows readers to take in the image and the title, and for those who know of Buck Owens’ music, the title being his song title too, and then to read the lead and possibly the first paragraph to then decide if they want to carry on. This would be especially effective if the customer was going to be reading a page or two in the shop before buying the magazine as it would allow their attention to be grabbed by this double page spread and to buy it, maybe listen to some of Owens’ music. I would like to recreate something similar to this as I love how the image is the main focus of the page, and how the star has been styled to match Dyer’s theory.