Conventions analysis of a magazine

Mast Head: The mast head of any magazine is the brand name. As for this magazine here above, the mast head is ‘NOW’.

The mast head is always usually the biggest text on the magazine, it promotes the brand of magazine making it noticeable to the customer. Its always placed at the top of the magazine to grab the attention on the customer and allow them to notice what brand it is, in the hope if they enjoy the magazine they will return to buy this same brand of magazine again.

The mast head connotes to the magazine as its relevant to what the magazine is publishing. This magazine is called ‘NOW’ and all its content is up to date stories and information that is happening right NOW.

The mast head appeals to audience in many ways, firstly without a mast head a consistent customer will not know which there favorite magazine is as there is no brand name selling it. Also, the mast head is always bold, big and bright, a specific technique in order to make the customer remember this brand name.

Main Feature Story: The main feature story in any magazine is the most interesting and juiciest information they have that they want to promote as the most important. The main feature story is always the most interesting story within the magazine, and is used as the magazines biggest selling point.

The main feature story is usually always central on the front of a magazine, and usually takes up most of the space. This is because it’s a deliberate intention to promote this story they have information on ,they want you to know its important so show main snippets of it on the front with the intention that you will buy the magazine to read on further.

The main feature story is always important to the audience as the majority of the time this is what sells the magazine its self. Without a main feature story, the customer may not be interested so making the main feature story, interesting and up to date is extremely important.

It persuades them to buy the magazine as they want to read on further about the story,they want to find out what else was said,in this case about Ashley cheating on Cheryl.

 Main Feature image: The main feature image and the main feature story work together in promoting the most important story in the magazine. The main feature image is used to promote the main story, it gives you visually something to look at to put the feature story into perspective.

Its always placed in the center just like the main feature story header, its placed here so it capture you on first glance an it the most prominent feature on the magazine front. If it was placed in a corner and was very small it wouldn’t have the same effect as a large image than covers most of the front of the magazine. It would give the impression that that image doesn’t have much importance.

This image used on this magazine promotes exactly what the main feature story is about. We see Ashley almost looking smug and powerless and he stares at Cheryl, while Cheryl herself looks doubtful and forgiving exactly what the main feature story entails-Ashley blaming Cheryl for something he’s done.

Its appealing to the audience because its visually eye capturing, without a picture the text may come across boring and ‘story-like’ where as if there’s an image that connotes with the story it brings it back to real life and puts what is actually been said into perspective. It persuades the customers to buy the magazine as the image may have an effect on them, the may be able to relate to it, or wonder why Cheryl is looking the way she does, it creates an effect on the reader that may cause them to buy the magazine, that without it they wouldn’t-and this is why having a main feature image is so important.

Pull Quotes: Pull quotes are used to promote snippets of interviews/story’s etc that are within the magazine itself.

They’re placed on the front of a magazine to intrigue you and made you want to read on further. They’re often the most interesting bits of a story/interview etc and are used to promote the whole story itself.

In this case the pull quote is actually one of the biggest pieces of text used, NOW magazine have deliberately done this is order to show you what Ashley has actually said. Using pull quotes in this way can be extremely effective and make the article the magazine is promoting even more believable.

Pull quotes are appealing to the audience as they’re interesting, intriguing and more than often the attention grabber than makes you want to read on. Without a pull quote nothing may jump out to a customer, resulting in them not buying the magazine.

Pull: The pull in a magazine is more than often the little added extra to entice you to the magazine even more. Its usually a giveaway or something free within the magazine but more than likely it’s a competition.

By adding pulls to a magazine it makes you think that if you buy there magazine your also going to get something else-as if your getting more for your money.

In this example Now have advertised that they have the best selling holiday clothes from just £2,a deliberate act in order to make you think how can they be so cheap. Resulting in you buying there magazine, pulls I think are the are the extra little selling point that without could effect the sales of the magazine as a whole.

Cover Line/s: Cover lines are the second most important story in the magazine. They usually feature at the top of the magazine and are often smaller,theres usually more than one of these too.

Magazines usually (like the main feature image) advertise high profile images of celebs on the cover story’s too, so if you are not that fussed over reading what the main feature story is there still trying to intrigue with more gossip they have to offer. By showing well known faces there increasing there customer base of who the magazine would appeal to.

Now here have used a very popular at the minute reality tv star Joey Essex and an extremely well known high profile celeb J-LO.

I noticed on the cover lines they included a man and a women, again appeal to both the male/female audience.