Textual Analysis

Front covers

• Big Cheese (Issue 128)

The front cover uses bright clashing colours (pink and green) and the use of the band wearing blacks, reds and whites make them stand out against the green. The masthead font isn't very readable but the colour and font may be a brand identity so fans of the magazine would know what it says as they would have seen it before. The colours of the cover lines match the masthead which make the masthead fall into the background even more. The use of another picture in the bottom left hand corner fills in a gap well but looks as if it's part of the main image. Also the small image in the top right corner also fills in a gap, but it looks too small. Despite this, the cover line that goes with this image fits well as they've used My Chemical Romance's band logo instead of their own magazine font so they're not all the same on the front cover.

• XXL (October 2010)

This front cover is very plain, but effective. The use of the red background on the masthead makes it stand out against the black and white image. the way that the image has been edited to slip around and change the cover lines so they juxtapose, e.g. "Love Kanye West" to "Hate Kanye West". The editors haven't just turned the image around, they turned the whole of the front cover around so the use of having two coloured mastheads make it stand out even more so. This issue of the magazine is obviously all about Kanye West as there is nothing else on the front cover. If there was more information in the magazine about other celebrities, then the editors should have put something about that one the front cover as this would advertise the magazine more to different ranges of people.

• Eve (December 2007)

The first thing you see is the image, so if you are a fan of Zoe Ball then you are more likely to want to buy it. They may have made the image so prominent because if fans of the celebrity saw her first, they would more likely buy it despite the fact that the magazine is worth £3.30. The use of the grey background goes well with her grey dress, and the red font stands out against this. It's got a very classy, glossy, expensive look to the magazine and is obviously for females with cover lines such as "Miracle Dresses" and "Be Totally Gorgeous". Their slogan is "Beautiful, Useful, Real" which also targets the female audience more so than the male. It also has seasonal cover lines such as "Deck Your Halls" which correspond with the month that it came out in.

Contents Pages

• Eve (December 2007)

Eve's contents page matches the front cover well, as it has bold colours for the borders of each section and it's laid out in a manner which you can easily read. They have also highlighted the cover stories in pink so if you bought the magazine especially for item in particular, then you can easily find it in the contents page. They've also put an image from each feature within the borders, and especially the beauty feature (bottom left) there's a picture of a snowman which also relates to the festive feel of the magazine. In the bottom right hand corner, they've also advertised recycling by having the green logo and underneath it says "When you have finished with this magazine please recycle it". I like how it's all lined up and extremely neat.

• Q Magazine (October 2008)

Q Magazine uses red and black as their colour theme with the background of white most of the time. The use of these colours make the images and writing stand out really well as the colours don't clash, but blend really well together. The image takes up most of the page and the writing is surrounding it, again with their colour scheme.They've sectioned each of the features of the magazine into 4 sections and so you can find what you may have bought the magazine for easily. They also have an 'every month' section which would be useful for some of the readers that buy the magazine most months. Q also include most of the features they have in the issue, naming almost every page within a section. The way that the main image is in colour and not black and white adds more colour into their scheme, yet it still fits in really well together as the band is in dark colours which correspond to the black colour scheme.

Double Page Spread

• NME Magazine

This double page spread uses images and titles to fill up most of the space but they then make the article writing small so it balances out. People who like Lily Allen's music will understand the title as this represents her personality and the font similarly represents her style. Similar to Q Magazine, they have also used black, white and red in the writing and the styling of the model. I now know that using these colours will be the best idea as a lot of top music magazines use them. The way that the model is leaning matches the direction that the font is leaning as well and this may portray that what she's talking about in the interview may not be smooth. Also, the font is that used in a newspaper which might be saying that it's the press that stereotype her as an attention seeker and that's why people think what they do. In my double page spread, I will take all of this into account and see if I can show my magazine in a similar way to what NME have.