Double Page Spread - The Making Of

With this post I am going to take you through how I made my double page spread.

Draft

I created a draft drawing of what I wanted my double page spread to turn out like. This is my initial drawing :

Unfortunately, as you will see later on, my double page spread turned out slightly differently to my drawn draft. The layout changes, and I hadn't taken into account the size of the background image or the contents of the room which I took the picture in. Apart from this, the contents of the page and the layout are fairly similar to how I planned for them to be.

Background

Firstly, I needed to take the background of the page. During my double page spread research and analysis of similar media texts, it was apparent that the majority of magazines use one main image which spreads across the two pages. I decided to mirror this method and also use one main image which will be viewable across both pages. This was my main image :

This image then needed some modification to it. The central picture (portrait) was in the way of where I wanted to write some of my article. In hindsight, it would have been easier to take this image off the wall before I took the photo, however with the use of Photoshop I was able to hide the image using the clone stamp tool. This tool allows the user to manipulate areas of the photo by copying the colours of other areas of the image. I needed to cover the picture by using this tool, and after getting the colours from the edges surrounding the picture it looked like this:

and then this :

Because of the colour changing due to the shading of the wall, I then needed to get the gradient of the colours to flow smoothly into one another. After I had done this, my background image was complete and looked like this :

Because the border around the top of the room was slanted, this made the page and image look disorientated and so I was required to enlarge the image so that it would still fit 2 A4 pages, and then placed it so that the border and the right wall were not showing. My background image was the finished and I needed to layer the text on top :

Text

I then needed to write the text for my page. This text would form the article about Dom Norman, who featured on my front cover and contents page. From my research into similar media texts, it was apparent that most articles started off with a large first letter, and the rest of the text wrapping around this letter. I decided to also use this method as it makes the article look more sophisticated and much neater as well.

Because the two pages would be split down the middle, this would affect my text and where it went. My paragraph was next to the remaining picture on the wall, and as you can see below, it forced the paragraph to become much slimmer and longer, however it still looked neat and it is still easy to read :

This was the introduction the article. The main feature of the article was a question and answer to simple questions, answered accordingly by Dom. Because of the position of the sofa, this meant the text had to be wrapped around the chair so as not to be written over the sofa :

This is a blessing in disguise, as the wrapping makes the article look neater and more professional. This was the text which was written on my double page spread, so all that was needed was the heading and the subtitle. After these, my double page spread would be finished. Because I had written the artice, I was able to choose from the text written what would stand out as an important quote which would entice the readers :

After I decided the main heading, I then needed to write an introduction into the article. This would be 2-3 lines as seen in the research into similar media texts, and it would tell the reader what to expect within this article :

This was all the text written and everything laid out in an appropriate position. I reviewed my page, however I noticed that there was a lot of dead space surrounding my picture. From the research I conducted earlier in this task, it was clear that the better magazines did not leave much empty space on their pages, and therefore I had to make amends to this. The main area where there was dead space was around the guitar :

I needed to think of what would be relevant that could fit in the positions to the left and to the right of the guitar neck. I thought that I would be able to squeeze in a picture of something to the right of the guitar neck, and so I managed to find, shape and fit a picture in with text underneath explaining to the reader what it is :

This is a picture of Dom when he was holding a guitar, aged 6. I thought that this was extremely relevant to the article and so I fitted it in quickly. Now I needed to think about the left of the guitar, and what would be relevant to go in. I decided to put a mini factfile in about Dom Norman, with facts that his adoring fans may be interested to know about :

I believe that this was a good addition to the page, as it gives the reader something more to have a look at, and it also fills up space to make the page look less empty.

Overall in making my double page spread, I have used the clone stamp tool to cut out a picture, I have used text wrapping, written an article on a musician and realised that dead space needed to be covered up with relevant items. With this being the first double page spread I have produced, I feel that it has been a valuable experience and has not been too tedious. I believe that my first venture into a double page spread has been a success :