Background of TOP OF THE POPS magazine:Top of the Pops magazine is a monthly publication published by immediate media company. It features chart information, star gossip, fashion and beauty advice, quizzes, song lyrics and posters. It is a supplementary magazine for the TV show top of the pops until the latter was

cancelled in 2006.The magazine was launched in February 1995 and is famous for giving girl group the spice girls their nicknames. Alongside a revamp of the TV show, it was originally marketed as the missing link between Smash Hits and NME, but its format was gradually changed, with less

music content and a demographic shift to young girls. It is still in publication despite the cancellation of the TV show.

The title has had several editors over the years, including Peter Lorraine, Corinna Schaffer and Rosalie Snaith, and contributing editors including Adam Tanswell. Its current editor is

Peter Hart.Information from Wikipedia

Genre: Music Magazine.

Target audience: young girls.

Frequency: printed in the UK monthly.

Design: The cover story is displayed clearly in the centre of the page on a bright coloured heart, symbolising the cover story ‘straight from the Heart. The main features which draw in young girls to magazines are bright happy colours e.g. yellow, pink, teal. They don’t use mature or less happy colours grey, black because it wouldn’t grab a young girls interest. The logo of the magazine ‘top of the pops’ is in a ‘fun font’ with a more ‘funky’ font, swirly s with stars around the words and less important words ‘of the’ in a smaller font in a bubble to bring more focus on the rhyme ‘top of the pops’. The magazine layout also had a flush left with most stories displayed clearly on the left, all stories have a image relating to them as younger girls are more attracted to images then writing and more likely to recognise an image then name of a celebrity. The main puff is in a separate colour (yellow) to draw the young girls attention to the word cheap which is also in a different font again making a young girl more intrigued as to what is free?

Housestyle: Top of the pops uses bright pastel colours; pink, teal, yellow and whites this is to draw in the audiences attention-because their main target audience is young girls they have used bright colours and lots of different colours. The main colour they use is pink(used on the masthead) which is stereotypically associated with young girls and being their favourite colour so is more likely to draw them into the magazine which is the covers aim- to grab the buyers attention. They use the colour pink to highlight the bits young girls would most likely be interested in e.g. a big pink heart is associating with young girls and their crushes on celebrities like one direction also featured clearly on the front cover.

Image/ pose style make up: There is a few images on the front cover as this is more attractive to younger girls-younger people prefer to see images then lots of words, far more eye catching to the younger eye. There is one large iconic image for the background of top of the pops. This is a typical element of top of the pops as the image is of ‘heartthrobs’ of most young girls, and most of them will know and love one direction making the magazine with them as the main image more attractive and relating to the symbol of the heart and cover line that they can find out more about their celebrity crushes and their hearts and emotional side(very appealing to young girls). On the left side of the cover they use smaller images but of again well recognised pop stars for young girls with other typical celebrity crushes for young girls e.g. J. Bieber

How are words used? And what language they use to address the reader : They use buzz words such as ‘CHEAP’ celeb treats this makes the target audience think they can get some cheaper products to be more like their idols, as their audience is young girls this is important as they are young and impressionable so do look up to icons and want to be like them. ‘cheap’ reassures the parents and children they can afford these products. They have placed it exactly next to where it says at the top of the page ‘steal tulisa’s x factors style. The masterhead ‘top of the pops’ is displayed at the top of the page so when stacked on a shelf in a shop people can still clearly see what magazine it is and the pink colour and rhyme attracting young girl audience as it makes it very ‘catchy’, this is also the typical masthead position.

Institution/distribution- top of the pops is published by a company . He has published other magazines or been an editor of ones such as NME so therefore specialises in music.

Overall impression, how effective is the front cover: overall the front cover is very effective as it had one main, clear, iconic picture relating to their main story on a musical legend, using dark colours to show it is a sad, deep serious story- a clear reflection of what is inside. The cover also uses blasts of red to highlight important bits, give the magazine some colour to intrigue you more also match the logo. The Barcode is clearly displayed at bottom right of the magazine which is the expected position of a magazine, making it look official and professional. It is clearly deigned to appeal to an adult audience interested in music. By using serious main stories rather than childish ones, and mature serious colours not pink or yellow expected on kids magazines.

Housestyle: The housestyle on top of the pops contents page has kept the same colour scheme as the front cover to assure the contents page matches the front cover, keeping the young girls interested with the colour pink. Maintaining a fun and light hearted impression and mood with these colours and amount of light and bright colours. Continuing this idea of happiness and fun that the magazine will bring to these young girls whilst they are reading it.

Design: The layout of the contents page is very suitable for their target audience of young girls. They have used a lot of images, and made it extremely easy to find what the target audience wants to see by adding a image of the front cover to the left. They have divided the contents into boxes of different genres e.g. ‘celeb and gossip’ or ‘all about you’ to assure the younger girls can skip to their favourite bits as they are less likely to be interested in reading the whole magazine. The contents also maintains the pink and white house style making it more attractive and keeping the girly theme, whilst highlighting headings of sections making it easy to find what the audience is looking for- the whole aim of a contents page.

Images/ pose/style/makeup: the contents page only contain many images, This is the most effective way to intrigue their target audience- because their target audience is young so is more interested and intrigued by recognisable images and their favourite colours. All images they have included are fun and happy ones where the artists are smiling- this is because the magazine is aimed at young girls who lives are full of fun and happiness as they aren’t aware of worries or stresses yet. The way the images are placed randomly and fairly disorganised reflects this young, fun, care free stories they would feature e.g. stories on crushes rather than an adult magazine with stories on power and careers.

How are words used? And what language they use to address the reader: They use buzz words such as ‘wins and offers’ so the young audience thinks they have a chance to win and have put this next to offers to encourage the young children to get their parents to buy things as well. In this contents page there are many words used encouraging their young audience to buy 'we love shopping' or 'offers' this is because children are easily influenced. They use a lot of collective pronouns 'we' or personal pronouns 'you' this is to make direct address to the target audience so it feels more personal and is written in a friendly informal tone '1D' or 'celebs'. Also when looking at how the words are written they use the font of handwriting again to create this informality and personal almost diary like magazine appropriate for the fun and friendly vibe the magazine wishes to present because of its young target audience.

Overall impression, how effective is the contents page: overall the contents page is effective. The purpose of a contents page is to assure what is in the magazine is easy to find as people only want to read bits they are interested in. For a younger audience like this magazine has a contents page needs to be clear and very simple and easy for the target audience to find what they want to read. It has lots of images to keep the younger audiences interest so they can see a picture of their favourite artist and find what page it is on easily. It uses bright, lively colours to keep the same housestyle and happy, fun colours throughout representing the context of the magazine. The contents uses blasts of pink to highlight headings, making it even easier to find what their younger audience is looking for with plenty of clear headings 'all about you' or 'celebs and gossip'. The final key feature from the overall impression is the front cover displayed, this is again relating back to the target audience by displaying the front cover on the contents page with annotations of page numbers for each story featured on the cover it makes it very simple and easy for their younger audience to find the story they want.

Institution/distribution- top of the pops is published by a company . He has published other magazines or been an editor of ones such as NME so therefore specialises in music.

Housestyle: The double page spread has changed its colour scheme from bright pink to blues, however they done this to relate to the article as it is about the boys of one direction and colour blue has the connotation of a 'boy's colour' especially to a younger audience. The magazine still flows nicely as it is still using lighter blues and pastel colours, not like a random dark red. These lighter colours maintain the fun, happy impression that the magazine wants to represent as the stories within the magazine are more upbeat and happy to appeal to their younger audience who want to read about crushes and fun not deep serious stories you would find in an adult magazine like Q.

Design: The double page spread has a more formal balance of image to text in it's layout. The layout has differed slightly from the previous double page spreads, this double page spread has an image on each page to represent the article on the boys as a group by using the same colour scheme on all the pages, but giving them they're own individual page for their own 'story'- this may be so that the young girl audience can flick to their favourite member to read about. The text is divided into small paragraphs as this is more appealing to their younger target audience as large quantity of text would be off putting to a young person. The typeface for the boys names is in a handwriting font this again relates to their young target audience making it feel like the boys have wrote it themselves giving a more personal and diary feel to it.

Overall impression: The double page spread has the a very good overall impression for their target audience. They use plenty of images, large pull quotes within puffs to capture the younger girls attention making them want to read the article. The magazine kept a housestyle of light, pastel colours throughout the whole magazine maintaining the fun and happy mood and relating to their young target audience (blue for boys and pink for girls). The double page spread has a informal balance of picture to text the picture takes up most of the page and there is little text this is because most young people are put off by large quantities of text and are drawn in by images. By using two different large images of boys from one direction they are more likely to interest their younger target audience because they will most likely fancy the young boys and want to know what the boys like.

How are words used? And what language features? Top of the Pops uses lots of pull quotes as this is the best way to get a younger audience more interested in the contents of the article and give a clear idea of what's in it grabbing the readers attention. The pool quotes relate to school ‘I’ didn't fit in' and 'I’ put my girlfriend before my grades' They've chosen to use the semantic field of school as this is a topic their target audience are most likely to relate to. They use relatable vocabulary to do with schools or 1st person pronoun ‘I' to make the article feel personal as young girls most likely have crushes on these young boys so would be more interested by the personal tone of the article to make them feel more like they know the boys.

Image/pose/style/makeup: The double page spread has two main images of two boys from the band one direction, the boys would be recognisable to most young girls so a long shot of both the boys will draw in the reader as they will already know the article will be about them. Another typical feature they used is the direct mode of address by the way the boys are looking at the reader, another way of making it feel more personal so the young girls are more interested in reading it. Both the boys are wearing, younger, school-like clothing e.g. a t shirt and a jock like jacket this school like image could relate to the pool quotes talking about school related things 'grades'. By their pose and the way they are dressed it creates the impression that they're young lads making them more attractive and marketable to their younger female audience. This is why they are ideal images for the front cover and cover story of Top of the Pops magazine with their young girls target audience.