The magazine cover uses pink and white colors with yellow accents to stand out important details, reflecting the magazines young female target audience. The cover is heavily image-based with the main artist photo and additional celebrity shots. Key information like the artist name and magazine title are written in bold, casual fonts to appeal to readers. The magazine aims to attract fans of pop music and television with gossip and lyrics and uses conventions like pull quotes and flashers to highlight features.

1. As Smash Hits is a magazine pop genre magazine that is mainly aimed at young girls the masthead is in two shades of pink as pink has connotations with females and young people. Yet as a lot of other items on the page are also in the colour pink, to avoid clashes and make the masthead appear more prominent and thus memorable, they have added a thick white background/ outline onto it, making it stand out more. Also the curvy, bubble font style makes it appear more casual and more informal, as this is a young persons entertainment magazine. The cover is very image lead and dominated. This is not only because they have added six images other than the main image, but also because the mise-en-scene of the cover including the copy, background, flasher etc and made up of many different shapes. Such as the circular bubble writing of the masthead, the straight line/ square font of the cover lines, the circular background shape around Gwen Stefani, the square border around the photos of mcfly, the circular flasher and the triangular shapes highlighting the tags ‘new look’ and ‘I’m a celeb...secrets’. The colour scheme of the house style of the magazine is clearly several shaded of pink and white. This is used for the masthead, cover lines and background. They have then used the colour yellow in order to make certain aspects stand out more than others due to their importance. The fonts used other than the bubble writing of the masthead are all very bold, straight line, son-serif fonts. This is to make the copy bold and poignant. Also most of the copy/ cover lines have outlines and borders to make them stand out more. Also the copy featured on the yellow items are in black to prevent colour clashes and to make them stand out more. The convention of including a flasher has been included by Smash Hits to highlight one aspect of the magazine. In this case it is to highlight the feature of song lyrics in the magazine. Like a lot of (music) magazines they have included a pull quote from the artist shown in the main image. Also they have positioned this on top of his costume of a black shirt making it stand out more. Like most magazine the barcode, price and date of issue is placed at the bottom of the magazine near the right side of the magazines. The main image featured is of Shayne Ward, who is a well known pop artist and is also very well known from the television show X-factor which is also stated in the main cover line to attract fans of Shayne ward, the pop genre and the X-factor. Like many magazine aimed at young people and girl the mode of address is informal and based around gossip as well as the celebrities young girls may be attracted to. There is a small lure included here ‘100% shocking’ as this suggest that the reader does not know about the content featured in the magazine and engages and persuades them to read on. There are very little cover lines on this cover. The two main cover lines are both linked to the artist featured in the main image. Both of these are white with a pink outline/ border to make them stand out more than the other cover lines. The other cover lines are in one colour only as they are not the main features of the magazine. The other cover lines featured around the McFly photos are in black to match the yellow box and create a contrast with the rest of the magazine cover and thus look more prominent. The cover uses the convention of rule of thirds, however as it is image led and due to the angle and positioning of the cover lines, this is harder to see. Yet from the header advertising the features in the magazine e.g. the posters, lyrics etc we can see the divide into three sections.

2. Like most young people magazines and a lot of music magazines this contents page is hugely dominated by images. There are four images of artists/ bands that are very well known in the pop genre. One convention that this contents page follows is the credits positioned in the left hand column. The rule of thirds is also used on the contents page, yet is more clear than on the cover as the article list at the bottom of the page is clearly split into three columns. Also the credits fill one column and the photos take up the other two for the majority of the page. The contents page also includes a flasher. It advertises the competitions and prizes available in the magazine. The mode of address continues to be casual and informal. This is shown by the fact that the language has been shortened and abbreviated. The lure is included at the top ‘news, gossip, whatever...’ this advertises the fact that the magazine is a gossip magazine as well as a music magazine. To make it easier for young people to follow and read, the main contents in split into three subheadings and only takes up a small section of each of the three columns of the page. There is also no extra detail about the articles, only the page numbers and titles. Unlike most magazine, the masthead is not kept the same as that on the front cover. The font is the same, hover the size, position and colour has changed. The house style of the cover is continued onto the contents, as the colour scheme remains as pink and white with some aspects of black and yellow. Yet as this is an issue close to Christmas, they have also used the colour red. The font remain the same, and we also see a font used that imitates hand writing to reinforce the fact that the tone of this magazine is casual and informal. There is a small editorial included at the top. This outlines what the magazine and this addition offers and how Smash hits has changed.

3. The page is again very image led as it features ten pictures/ photographs. The title of the article is also a pull quote. This is because it insinuates the contents of the article and suggests that McFly have been interviewed for the article. There is not really a structured or clear layout to the double page spread. This is because it is a casual young persons magazine and it makes it appear more dynamic and attractive. The colour scheme of the house style continues to be pink and white with small items of yellow, black and red. It also continues to use lots of shapes and to highlight and structure certain aspects such as boxing small articles or gossip items. Unlike most magazines, this double page spread doesn’t include a by-line, picture credits or a stand first. This may be due to the fact that young people are more attracted to pictures than a lot of text and therefore are unlikely to reader the small prints of the these. Also unlike most double page spreads and magazine, this magazine doesn’t include a drop capital as the articles/ paragraphs are only small and thus are unnecessary. Again the artist/ band that is featured in the main images are well known, famous and associated with the modern pop genre. The lure and the small version of the masthead are included on this page also. This to make it more memorable and recognisable. As young people are more interested and attracted to pictures than a lot of text, and stereotype that young people are interested in (celebrity) gossip, the page is dominated my pictures, and there are lots of short gossip articles rather than one large article. The two main articles that are linked to the main images are set out in columns to make them easier and more interesting to read and to follow a convention of many magazines and newspapers.