Ben Jacks Media A Level Double Page Spread Analysis 1 - Nicki Minaj

1. By Ben Jacks

3. The main image used in this double page
spread is Nicki Minaj. Nicki Minaj is an
Trinidadian-born American rapper, singer
and songwriter. She is a suitable picture
to use for this as she is very iconic (as
shown in the sign on her fingers) to the
pop industry so everybody reading the
magazine will know or recognise her face
and will be interested as she is so famous
in this genre.
The image is in front of both the main
bulk of the text and the headline which
shows her importance because the
headline is a very important part of the
page but because Nicki is in front of the
headline, it makes her stand out more.
She is also shown with a very unusual
facial expression which is not what we
expect and therefore makes her stand
out more.

4. Nicki is wearing a very bright pink lipstick
which closely matches the colour of the
background but also almost identically
matches the colour of the headline. As
the headline is one of the most important
conventions of the page it draws
attention to her lips.
She is also shown wearing a black and
white zebra like top which matches with
the colour of the black font. The curls
and curves on the top match with the
font used in the headline of the article
which is ‘The Gospel According To’.
Also the curves on the top are not
straight and are not parallel to the font
which makes it stand out more because
they are not traveling in the same way.
Similarly, this makes her stand out even
more and makes her look more
important.

5. The image of Nicki is very large and
takes up around a third of the double
page spread which is a huge amount for
an image but this puts emphasis on
what this page is about. If the page was
about numerous artists then Nicki
would be smaller so that she is not
accentuated much.

6. The font used in the headline is a bright
pink which is a very iconic colour that is
used primarily with females and young
girls. It also suggests politeness,
sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness,
childhood, femininity, and the romantic.
The alignment in the main bulk of the
text is aligned to the left throughout all
the text which makes it look neat and in
the 2nd part of the article where they
talk about ‘If thou is born with it, thou is
born with it’, there is a lot of dialogue
between Nicki and NME. When NME is
talking to Nicki it takes up the full line
but when Nicki is answering NME it only
goes up to half the line which makes it
stand out more and shows contrast
between what is she saying compared to
what the magazine company is saying.

7. On the page on the right the text is aligned so
that it goes around her body and her body is
in front of the text which makes her look
more important and makes her stand out
more as she is the central image.
Even one of the main headlines and quotes of
Nicki which is ‘I really toned down on the
sexual stuff there was no need for me to do
it’ is aligned so that it goes around the image
of Nicki which again shows her importance.

8. The fact that there is no secondary
image on the magazine is again
highlighting Nicki’s importance as there
is nothing for the reader to look at
meaning they will be forced to look at
the main image which takes up 1/3 of
the page. The whole page is about Nicki
so there is no need to have images about
anything else.

9.  The masthead is ‘The Gospel
according to’ which suggests that
Nicki is holy and sacred because she is
that special and popular. It also
suggests she is God-like and maybe
like an angel. Also her name ‘Nicki
Minaj’ is the biggest font on the page
which shows her significance and the
font is a colour which no other font is
which also could suggest she is not
the same as every one else as she is
so good.

10.  All the text in this article is very
lighthearted and they have used pull
quotes to highlight the most
important parts of the article and to
attract the readers attention to
these parts because they are
probably the most interesting parts.
This style of article would appeal to
a younger target audience such as
teenage girls as they can read the
article in small chunks instead of
one long piece of text because
typically young teenage girls prefer
not to read really long pieces of
text.