Pop music magazine contents page annotations

By Matthew McMinn

Top of The PopsThe colours in the contents page match the colour pallet style on the front cover. Again the pink stereotypically attracts the young female audience but they do not find this until they look into the magazine. The cover has been put into the contents page, this reminds the reader of what they were interested in on the front cover and then tells them what page those cover lines were on. As the colours are reasonably the same as the front cover same new colours need to be added to keep the attention of the reader, for example the yellow which has effectively been used as a highlighter. This is used to highlight specific pages which the decision maker would find most appealing to the audience. Also the images which are placed (that aren’t the front cover) are appealing to this magazines target audience and so keeps them interested at the contents.

The contents isn’t named the contents at the top it is “Inside the mag…” this is suitable language for the magazines readers as they might not even know what a contents is, they could see the word and have no clue as to what it meant and so the page could potentially be ignored. Also it’s font appears hip, fresh and attractive to young people. It’s not linear but curly and swerve like. It is also not straight along the top it is slightly slanted upwards. This would be an interesting style to the audience and so works quite well. Also the white inside the pink is very girly and appeals more to younger readers than to maybe a slightly older reader such as pre-teen etc…

The font looks hand written and so this gives a personal feel and so the audience will feel connected to what they read.

The way in which the contents is set out has been done so that it is convenient for the reader. If the reader is only interested in gossip for example and they can find all the pages to do with that section. This makes the pocket money the target audience spend on this magazine all the worth while. It is convenient, colourful and informative of celebrities lives. The font and colour of the page numbers are continuous, they look quite funky and cool for the target audience of the young females as they are curvy and not linear. Also the curves are like an hour glass figure and this has become the perceptive image for an ideal women to be an hour glass figure. This could imprint in the young girls head and give them a very negative attitude on their body figurements when they are slightly older to when they are reading the magazine

The text of the contents varies in stimulus intensity as some text is bold black and other text is a lighter grey. The words in bold black are the key words that we attract the younger audience to the articles, all they see if the name of one of their idols eg Rihanna, and they instantly want to turn to the page. For the slightly older and more interested readers there is a brief description of what is on the page and tells you more. This text is light grey as it is not crucial to making people turn to those pages, that is what they hope the bold black text will do.

The contents is not ordered by page number as in text books or reading books, this appears to make it more difficult to navigate but the categories do help to find what the reader wants to see. With magazines you wouldn’t necessarily read everything and a jumbled contents suggests that there is no correct way for this to be read.

BillboardThe colour pallet scheme in the contents is continuous to the front cover where the “Billboard” title has the green and blue in its letters, in hindsight it now suggests that those colours will be in the magazine. The blue makes it appear more masculine compared with the other magazines which have pink all over them. Also the use of black, greys and whites make the magazine seem more sophisticated as it is not as brightly coloured, although down the side of the charts there are pinks, reds and oranges as well as the blues and blacks. The blue suggests a more male targeted audience and the columned layout looks neat and organised. The pictures that have been put on the page are lined up neatly and are straight plus rectangular. This gives the magazine a cleaner look suggesting an older and more sophisticated audience. The grey suggests sophistication as what I think when I see grey is suits, briefcases and people going to work in tall corporate buildings.Also, the colours appear neutral meaning this could attract a multi-sexual audience which widens the range of possible readers. I may have said blue is more masculine but that is only in comparison to the usual pink related to pop music etc.

The pictures seem more suiting to a male audience as the men would not look dreamily attractive to a female audience and Katy Perry’s cleavage is playing on the male gaze to attract them to the article and magazine. Also the two top men next to Katy Perry look quite stylish and “cool” in a sense that men might like their fashion style so they take tips. Another thing is that this music magazine has an image of “Home Front” which is a TV programme and so this magazine is suggested to have more than just music content.Another thing about the images is that they are not taken in a studio as such, Katy Perry’s is taken from a live concert, the ginger guys looks as if it is taken as a screenshot from a music video and the other guy’s picture could have been taken in an interview room or his

living room. The “Home Front” picture looks as if it has been taken on set of the programme. This is varied from the front cover image where the picture was taken in a studio.

The font of the “Contents” is quite divided and looks as if the letters have been cut. This suggests that the celebrities lives have been cut open for the reader to know everything about them. This can also infer that separation between what is in the magazine as we can see that “Home Front” is a TV programme, so why is it in a pop music magazine? The font is quite linear and straight, easy to read, and not all fancy like.

There is a chart section to what music is doing best at the period of time, this also suggests that this magazine comes out weekly as that is when the chart changes and there is no point having a new chart every day or month as it would not be keeping up with current times. People want to know is at the top as soon as possible and this magazine provides this.

The way the pages are numbered are not in numerical order as magazines do not have to read like a book. A reader want to be able to find what they want without having to look through a full magazines contents to find it and so having sub-headings make it easier to navigate to what the reader wants to read. The words highlighted in blue suggests that they will be the titles of each aritcles.

We <3 PopColour pallet scheme is suiting to the Christmas theme of the magazine. The green part of the border reminds me of a Christmas tree. Also the golden ribbon bows remind me of wrapped up presents and this can be used to represent that the magazine is wrapped up and you need to open more of it to know EXACTLY what is inside. However, compared with its corresponding front cover the colour pallet scheme is dis-continued. The front cover was very bright pink and light blue and this does not appear to have carried over into the contents page. This makes the magazine feel less feminine than if you first judged it on the cover. In fact there is no pink in sight on this contents page. The main colours used here are: black, green and blue. The blue used gives an icy chilled out effect and the background behind Olly in his picture gives the feel of snowing. This could make the reader feel cold which is not what a magazine wants to do. When you open up that magazine you want to feel warm and welcome. However the contrast of Olly’s red warm jumper gives a fiery feel of warmth and passion, this is what makes you feel welcome on this contents page. I think pink hasn’t been used here as it is not that much of a Christmas like colour whereas green is and blue is related by the snow and cold.

“WE LOVE THIS…” is what they have decided to header the content page with. I feel that this has a group type of speech effect on the reader. The “WE” is addressing the readers as a group of people being spoken to. It does not necessarily give a personal feel or approach but it gives a collective gathering, warm feeling about the way it address the reader. This is directly related to the theme of the magazine which is Christmas as this is near when it has been published. At Christmas it is a time for collectivity and the magazine tries to address this with it’s contents header. The “THIS…” part is referring to the fact of everything below is what the readers love. What is below is what is in the magazine and it is directing you to what is in the magazine, straight to the point.

Some of what are on the pages are shown by a picture with a caption and the page number is positioned on the picture with a starry effect, even thought they arte squares, they are edged and golden and can look slightly like stars. This also coincides with the fact that the people in the photos are also “stars” but of a different variety. This pictures gives the reader the chances to picture in there heads what they are reading as they read the articles and imagine the situation rather than just have no picture or imagery around the text.

The row along the bottom shows a variety of posters which you can cut out of the magazine.

The rest of the pages shown in the contents page are in numerical order like a reading or text book. Other magazines contents pages have been similar to index’s but categorised differently. Every other number they are the same colour and it varies between green and black, as does the text. The text colour corresponds with the number colour. However, very little of the page space is taken up by what is inside the magazine, most of the space is taken up by the pictures and a mini article giving a brief description of what is in the magazine, like a summary. I’m not too sure if many people would take note of this and you would exspectit to relate to the picture of Joey Essex (unless the girl in the picture is Emily) then it doesn’t do that.

The brief summary is signed off by Emily in a hand written fashion which makes it feel personal to the reader and has a similar effect to a wish list to Santa or a Santa response letter which would suggest that the reader is getting exactly what they want.