CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSISBY JONI SOMMERVILLE

The theme of the contents page is white, yellow purple and pink. These colours are typically associated with feminity as they’re found in nature on flowers, in the rainbow etc. Overall the magazine looks filled with information, this is great for the target audience as young pre-teen girls will revel in this. However it does have a very cluttered appearance which lowers the professionalism of the magazine. As its all fit onto one page it may look better if, like the other magazines the content was spread out over two pages.

Furthermore traditionally it doesn’t look like a contents page as there isn’t a clear layout therefore it is harder for the readers to navigate around the magazine.

In the right hand corner the logo authenticates the magazine. The top of the page features a note from the writer, which hasn’t been done in previous magazines. The letter includes some slang terms such as “cray cray” to seem on trend to the reader. However like the others this is another technique used to get the reader to feel secure and personal with the magazine. As well as it provides an even quicker summary as to what is going to be in the magazine as the features/name drops are written in a bold larger font. It also tells us a lot about the audience as we know that they’re into celebrities, fashion, they hold materialistic values and are predominantly heterosexual.

To the right of that it appears as though they’ve incorporated the front cover as part of the contents, this does make it incredibly easy for the reader for to find the articles that they’re interested in as they don’t have to thoroughly scan the page. The simple layout is perfect for a young target audience.

These sell lines and articles grab the attention of the reader as they’re in a variety of combinations of the theme colours and they are in a large distinctive font. Like the previous each image has been assigned a page reference number. Cleverly TOTP have let companies that sell seasonal products advertise in the magazine as they know that they’re willing to pay a lot more as they have to make all their profits over a shorter period of time (this is the December issue).Something to admire from the magazine is the fact that they’ve put down their values, for example how they promise to never alter a person’s face or body shape. This separates them from other magazine companies because the majority magazines regardless of genre alter images to make the quality better. And so to go against this it shows honesty and subconsciously encourages the girls to be good girls with morals. As a parent, the customer who purchases the magazine for their daughter would feel reassured that their children were reading something that was so much more than showcasing stars and musicians but that spreads a positive message also.

The images used contain mostly mid shots and close ups, this is done so that the target audience can familiarise them selves with celebrities. The three shot commonly used in magazines is featured to draw the reader to the what they want them to read on the most: celebs and gossip. The man gasping intensifies the drama in a comical way that is likely to get the reader to turn to those pages. The within the images themselves there is plenty of symmetry for example facial expressions are mirrored to reflect a feeling of comfort onto the target audience as naturally studies have shown that the human brain likes symmetry. Although not digitally retouched all images use overly high key lighting to minimalize blemishes as the celebrities themselves have to look as refined and as “untouchable” as possible to give them the power to have a following because they’re so “flawless” or other Godlike qualities.

Thus far the lack of music related content has transformed this magazine into a fashion, celebrity gossip and lifestyle magazine in which most aspects aren’t relevant to the development of my own magazine. Yet although this is a poor example of a music magazine, some aspects are applicable to add background and dimension to my music magazine for example gossip between musicians could be an article that I publish in my own magazine.

Again to relax the reader and make the magazine seem personal and friendly they’ve made this section at the bottom consisting of collages of the producers of the magazine with celebrities and captions to denote what’s going on in the pictures. The majority of the pictures are group shots, these shots are use to communicate the ideas in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs of love and belonging as each are posed intimately with one and other. Even the layout of the images almost reflects a layout found in a family photo album, it looks as though they’ve been cut out and stuck on top of one and other. The effect is that it gives the reader the longing to be apart of the community of magazine producers and celebrities. The overall approach to the celebs is very casual, for example describing Olly Murs as having ‘popped’ into see them down plays the fact that he is a famous pop-singer.

The use of the yellow background behind the images makes the shots look warmer as the yellow brightens up the dull white background.