Music Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page Analysis

Music Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page Analysis

Front Cover

The masthead is a typical convention of a magazine. In this magazine the masthead is located in the top left side of the front cover and takes up a fair amount of the page. Despite the large size, the colours used are bold and contrasting. The use of the colour red connotes passion and strength which represents the artist Florence on the front cover as she’s a successful artist whose passion is music. The contrasting colour white connotes positivity over the darker colours which expresses the emotion the producers want to make the audience feel after reading.

The use of the pull quote “I feel so alone” attracts the audience as it introduces the main cover artist to the readers enabling them to work out there’s an interview involved within the magazine. By using the words “Alone” the reader will intrigued into reading further into the magazine.

The main image is a close up of Florence. The positioning of the photograph is centralised to fit the cover and enables there to be room for the sell lines to still catch audience’s eyes. The image targets the fans of Florence and the Machine. The purity of her skin relates to the purity of the content involved within Q magazine.

The main cover line “FLORENCE WOMAN ON THE EDGE” is big and bold so that the audience can see it from a distance when looking within a variety of different magazines. By positioning the main cover line at the top of the page the reader will be able to see it clearly on the front of the magazine.

The barcode is located on the bottom of the front cover so that the date/issue and price can be easily located to check when the issue was released.

The sell lines on the cover of Q magazine states the key information that is within the magazine. The wording of the sell lines “CHRIS MARTIN IN TEARS” engages the reader into reading the magazine as the target audience would want to read why Chris Martin is crying as when the audience read words such as “tears” they will want to emotionally connect with them sympathetically. Another sell line used on the front cover is “16-PAGE GIG BLOW OUT” shows the target audience what the magazine contains. The word “gig” is drop capped so that it stands out on the page.

Medium close up of Jessie J as she is the main feature of the magazine. Her pose is quite dominant indicating that the writers believe she will dominate the music scene. The outfit is quite edgy as was her attitude/style of music when she first started out. She is smiling which juxtaposes the sell line attached to it. This could be a message to readers that they too can overcome obstacles such as bullying.

The magazine consists of pink and white colours. These have very feminine connotations as the magazine has a very sweet style to it. The target audience is girls around preteen years, the pink colours will appeal to them subconsciously.

The masthead is bold to draw attention and make it easy to identify. Its target audience is younger readers. This brand of magazine helps them easily locate the magazine and keep buying the product.

Cover lines includes a variety of different storylines. This makes the magazine appealing to a lot of different potential viewers. They are highlighted in yellow with bold fonts in pink to stick with the pop magazine conventions of bright colours to attract audiences.

Various images are shown on the front page in order for viewers to see what inside of the magazine before looking inside. The pictures of other celebrities will attract young audiences as they could be there idols. 

Contents Page

All contents pages are usually in columns; on this particular contents page there are three. This gives the contents page an easy layout making it easy for the reader to find what they are looking for.

On all Top of the Pops contents pages the main image is of the front cover which is very unique due to readers picking up the magazine because of the main image. There are arrows pointing to all the different articles with their pages numbers. This is effective as it makes it easier for the audience to find the articles they were interested in and because of the young age of the target audience using arrows enables them to want to read on as its visual images rather than a lot of words. The main image of the contents page is a young boy band to encourage the audience to buy the magazine as young girls tend to be interested in finding out about male pop stars.

The colour scheme here is pink yellow and white which is commonly used colours used on pop music magazines. The colours, mainly pink, represent femininity which reinforces that the target audience is teenage girls. The colour yellow connotes happiness which the magazine is trying to promote and the colour white connotes simplicity which represents the lay out of the magazine.

The title on the contents page is generally very large. The font choice looks like someone’s handwriting which could represent the target audience of young girls writing in their diaries. The use of the word ‘mag’ instead of ‘magazine’ in the title is informal language which many teenage girls use in this day and age. The magazine may have used this to relate more to the teenage girls and encouraging them to buy the product. 

A typical convention of a contents is page numbers. Within this magazine they use large numbers to represent the page numbers as it makes it easy to locate certain articles and looks pretty on the eye to the reader. The font used on other pieces of text within the contents page is very bold and eye-catching to draw the reader’s attention to them. The font is feminine as the magazines target audience is young females.