1. Masthead
Plug
Main image
Main feature story
Date/Price
Secondary
feature story
Secondary
image
Barcode
Skyline
Secondary
feature story
Secondary
image
Secondary
image
Secondary
feature story
Secondary
image
Secondary
feature story
Pull quote
2. Skyline
Secondary
feature story
and images
Main feature
story
Pull quote
Main image
Plug
Barcode
Plug
Masthead
Secondary image
Secondary
feature story
Secondary
feature story
Secondary image
Pull quote
Secondary
feature story
Secondary image
Plug
Secondary image
Secondary
feature stories
and images Secondary image
3. Skyline
Plug
Masthead
Secondary image
Secondary
feature story
Secondary
images
Footer
Pull quote
Main image
Plug
Pull quote
Plug
Barcode
Secondary
images
Secondary
feature story
Main feature
story
4. All these mastheads use sans-serif fonts. This is appealing to younger people as it is considered less
formal. They all have bright colours e.g. yellow, orange and pink, which have connotations of
happiness and fun. These bright colours also make the masthead stand out. Both the ‘Top of the
pops’ and the ‘We love pop’ mastheads use images other than just letters, (Stars and hearts)
making them girly and childlike (reflecting the target audience) and also more aesthetically
pleasing. The stars in the ‘Top of the pops’ mast head connote stardom, reflecting what the
magazine is about (pop stars). The names ‘Top of the pops’ and ‘we love pop’ contain the word
‘pop’, clearly telling the audience what genre of music the magazine is about. ‘Smash hits’ also
does this, as the phrase is used to describe music at the top of the charts, which is regularly pop
music (As suggested by ‘Pop’ being an abbreviation of popular. ‘We love pop’ is in a speech bubble,
making the masthead extremely quirky. ‘Smash hits!’ uses an exclamation mark, turning the name
into an exclamative, making the masthead seem more exciting to the reader. ‘Smash hits’ is a
modern phrase, used by young people, making the masthead relate to the target audience. In the
‘Top of the Pops’ masthead the words ‘Top’ and ‘Pop’ are written larger than ‘of’ and ‘the’. Making
them stand out as they are the most important words (the sole purpose of ‘of’ and ‘the’ is to make
the name make sense. ‘Top of the Pops’ also rhymes, making the name more catchy.
5. Callouts
All the pop music magazines I am analysing have examples of callouts. Speech bubbles on
secondary images are very common. These are quirky, and often contain funny phrases giving
the covers a humorous tone. They almost make the covers look like comic books, making
them more fun, but using real celebrities that the audience can relate to. They contain comical
phrases, and often expressions such as ‘eek’ or ‘yum’ emphasising the emotion of the images.
The speech bubbles are all used on close-up images of medium close-up images, so that the
audience can clearly see the emotion of the celebrities. The speech bubbles never cover the
celebrities face so the audience can still see the facial expressions.
6. The pop magazines I am analysing all use plugs. Plugs are used to highlight a feature or fact of
the magazine to the audience. They are placed on the upper layers of the cover, making them
stand out. Many of the plugs on the covers are bright, attention catching colours such as
yellow or orange, making them capture the audience’s attention. In general, pop magazines
have lots of plugs, making the covers very busy and exciting, also very colourful and
decorative. Plugs are generally small, so the text inside them has to be brief but informative.
There are many examples of alliteration in the plugs, making them more enjoyable to read,
and making them more memorable to the audience, and to place emphasis on what is said in
them. Examples of alliteration are ‘Actually Amazing Mag’, ‘Sexy Souvenir Poster’, ‘boys,
beauty, battles’, ‘lunch with lovable rogues’. Triplets are used in one of the plugs ‘boys, beauty,
battles’, using a triplet adds height to the feature, giving a more enthusiastic tone. In some
plugs key words are highlighted by writing them in different colours, larger fonts, or in bold
writing. The most common shape of plugs is circles, followed by star shapes, there is one
example of a heart plug. The McFly plug looks like a sticker, that has been stuck on and is
peeling off, giving the cover a casual tone, and targeting the target audience as stickers are
popular amongst young people and teenagers.
