Magazine Cover Analysis

We love pop is a pop magazine. Its primary target audience is teenage girls around 11-14 year olds.

The masthead is very bold and bright and is the first thing that catches your eye. It is in a speech bubble; this connotes text messaging and gossiping. This would help target the magazines primary audience of teenage girls as these are two things stereotypically associated with them. The ‘love’ in the heading is also a picture of a pink heart.  This also connotes the internet and teenage colloquial language another thing which is heavily associated with the teenage generation in general. The black on the white stands and it is outlines by pink which has girly connotations.

The strapline reads ‘Hot! Hot! Hot!’ this is informal language something that is again stereotypically used by the younger generation. It is very bold and the explanation marks make it stand out as something that needs to be read. The colours used are pink, white and yellow; these are all very happy, bright colours. This reflects the light-heartedness of the magazine. The yellow could also represent summer as the magazine was released in august. The three colours all stand out from each other attracting attention like the explanation marks. There are three pull quotes on this cover. They are all things that are vague making the reader want to find out what context they are in and perhaps what the stories behind them are. They are also light-hearted again reflecting the theme of the magazine.

This magazine has a plug advertising X Factor bingo, using the X factor will appeal the target audience. There are two straplines; one at the bottom one at the top. The one at the bottom is labelled ‘new term spesh’. It is yellow which is stereotypically a positive colour, this is suggests they are trying to put a positive spin on something the reader stereotypically sees as bad; returning to school. This would appeal to the target audience as the magazine is suggesting it can make a bad thing better.

All the colours used on the magazine are very bright and eye catching. The pink contrasts the yellow making it stand out. This would help attract the target audience as it would stand out on the shelf next to competitors.  Pink, yellow and purple all have connotations of being very girly and happy which are things which are associated stereotypically with young teenage girls.

There are three main images on the magazine. This might help give the magazine a wider target audience as it creates a larger chance that someone will see their favourite artist on the cover. And seeing their favourite artist would encourage them to buy the magazine. The images are also anchored by pull quotes suggesting what they will be discussing inside the magazine. Some other images include pictures of popular artist anchored by story headlines e.g. the rhetorical question ‘going blonde harry?’ this would intrigue readers to find out the answer. In the bottom right hand corner are pictures of ‘fashion to fall for’. Fashion and clothes are something popular with teenage girls so this applies to the target audience. Also since this is a music magazine, the clothes section being included is a unique selling point.

The house style is very busy and bright. Everything is overlapping all, all the text is bold and the colour contrast helps it stand out. There are a lot of images helping to portray all the types of stories going to be included in the magazine.