XXL - Magazine Analysis

2 contents pages
Both on separate pages
Subheadings:
- Features
- Cover Story
- Editorial
- Critical Breakdown (Reviews)

The magazine XXL, is divided into sections however, there are confusions as there are only page numbers on the articles and not the adverts, which makes it difficult for people to find the articles they want to read as majority of the the magazine is filled with various advertisements. There are several double page spreads (DPS), but the main DPS is the cover story, which features Jay Z as he is also on the front cover of the issue. The cover story is highlighted and in a bigger font compared to the other articles on the contents page, as it is the main feature article of the magazine. There is only 1 image per contents page and the first contents page is a medium/close up shot, whereas the other contents page is only a medium/long shot.

This is the most significant DPS of the magazine, which is all about Jay Z. It has a simple structure of a blurb at the top followed by a question and answer type of article with a couple of pull quotes. The questions are in bold whilst the answers are in normal font and the pull quotes are in capital letters. The DPS is laid out with the entire article being on one page and a photo of Jay Z on the other page. The shot of this image is a medium/long shot and the lighting shows that it was probably taken in a studio. The costume colours of black and white contrast, which makes the image stand out and look bold alongside Jay Z's facial expression; which is quite fierce looking and serious. The prop in this image, which is the cigar in his hand, indicates a sense of high status and class as rich people usually smoke cigars as well as portraying an edgy side to Jay Z. There are no captions on any of the images of the articles including the main DPS however, the columns and text boxes are aligned and are laid out professionally. The DPS has a consistent colour scheme of black, white and orange as they are vibrant colours to attract the target audience.

This is another example of a DPS which has a similar layout as the Jay Z cover story article above. Similarly, there is one enlarged photo on one side of the page, which is a medium/long shot and on the other side there is the article along with pull quotes, big font for the title and no captions.

This shows the features of both the contents pages and DPS's of different music magazines, which was completed during a class discussion.