FRONT COVER

OVERVIEW

FRONT COVER OVERVIEWFor the front cover overview, I will using a variety of different front covers from pop magazine, which are shown on the left. The magazines are from the two well-known pop magazines, ‘Top of the Pops’ and ‘We Love Pop’. There are a variety of typical front cover conventions used throughout all the pop magazine front covers shown. The pop magazines are designed to attract fans who like the music genre, pop.

One of these features are the use of bright colours. Bright colours are used to represent pop genre as a whole, so people are able to recognise the magazines are for young teenage girls who love listening to pop music. For each pop magazine, there will be a colour scheme throughout the magazine to show its effectiveness and its representation. These colours also represent emotions like happiness, excitement, fun etc, which links to the personality of young girls who read these pop magazines. The colours include bright pink, yellow, orange, blue and white. These colours will be used to stand out and catch the audiences eye, convincing them to pick up the magazine and read through it.

Another feature that is common through each of the front covers is a simple blank white background. This is used to emphasise the main image, and make it more dominant. The white background also makes the reader think of innocence and purity, which links to the personality of young, teenage girls and the very innocence personality of pop. Furthermore, it allows the bright text seen on pop magazines to grab attention even more from the target audience. In addition to this, the simplicity of the background reflects the light hearted and straight forward style of pop music. As pop magazine use a lot of features on the front cover, it would be more comprehensible to use a plain white background instead of using a bright colour like yellow, as this would be less effective. If a pop magazine was to use a bright colour as the background, it would be even more busy, less attractive and would not convince individuals to purchase the magazine.

In each of the magazines, they have the convention of having a dominant main image. This is to capture the readers eye, and persuade them to read the magazine. The shot of the main image is at the same level of the artist/bands, as if the shot was taken at a high angle, it would make the artist/band look vulnerable. Furthermore, the pop magazines also have sell lines surrounded by the main image, featured article photos and mastheads which are effective and appropriate to pop. This also attracts the target audience, convincing them to make a purchase.

The majority of pop magazines have the name of the artist featuring in the main sell-line. This is to remind the target audience who the artist is and what the article is about. They use a famous artist/band as their front cover to attract fans and lure them in. Each of the artists on the front cover have a happy and positive facial expression and body language. It is a close up, and each individual is smiling and laughing which indicates they are loving life, fun and living life to the full. This

links to the personality of young girls as they are always happy and stress free. The use of happy facial expressions shows they are enjoying singing, which makes the target audience feel inspired and want to read more about these famous artists/bands.

There are other similarities in each of the magazines through mise-en-scene elements. In results of costume, the artists are wearing stylish and trendy clothes, which is the clothing that young teenage girls wear. The clothes are bright which represents them as pop singers, as well as fun and bubbly young individuals. The use of clothes in pop also brings an exciting and happy mood towards the reader, allowing them to have a positive self-esteem and feel good about themselves.

On each of the six front covers, they all feature small, close up article photographs. This is used to make the reader aware of what articles are included in the magazine and who they are about. These are all generally in a smaller form, to make the main image more dominant and appealing. These images are also attracting and appealing to the reader as young girls find images more engaging, which then convinces them to read about the article.

The majority of the magazines include posters which is a typical feature in pop magazines. This is effective as young teenage girls love to decorate their room, especially with images of their famous crushes and role models. This is used to persuade you girls to make a repeat purchase, due to the attractive posters provided with the magazine for free.

On each of the six front covers shown on the first slide, general codes and conventions are used across each of them. For instance, on every magazine created, mastheads will always stand out and be dominant, which allow the consumers eye lines to be drawn to this. This will make the magazines name become more noticeable and memorable which will benefit the magazine itself. ‘Top of the Pops’ and ‘We Love Pop’ have a very dominant masthead as they both use a bold font with bright colours. This will have a result of young teenage girls being able to notice their magazines anywhere they go.