Analysis of Top of the Pops Magazine Cover - Cher Lloyd

The masthead stands out immediately in a bright pink colour already showing references to their target audience of 'girly girls'. The typography of the masthead has a lot of design to it, the words 'of' and 'the' are grouped together in a circle and the 'S' at the end has a swirl to it. This is to try and give it a fun and younger feel so that it will appeal to their primary focused audience of younger girls.

The cover lines, '1D Go Nuts!' and 'Will Aston take you out?!' are talking about the male celebrities who were popular at that time. These are used intentionally as cover lines because they know that younger girls will want to buy it straight away. Furthermore, the strapline 'Style SOS! Our Experts to the Rescue!' has a small picture of Taylor Swift next to it with a drawn speech bubble reading 'You can do it too' This again has been used to attract younger girls to read the magazine by mixing fashion and celebrities together knowing girls will be interested in bot these topics. Taylor Swift was and still is a very popular music artist and her music is enjoyed by thousands of young girls and therefore by using her image with the story they know that girls will want to read it. 

The main cover line relates to the medium shot we have of, back then, rising star Cher Lloyd. It is a simple image to ensure that their audience will recognise her and with them being younger they don't want the image to be confusing in any way. By her image clearly and cover line being in the centre of the magazines layout we can see that she is the main feature within the issue. In this cover line the word 'Real' is written in capital letters and runs with the colour scheme in the circle, black and white. The different coloured words makes the story title stand out more and younger girls will be able to easily understand what it means. Because of their target audience, the editors have to keep the cover very simplistic and easy to read because a lot of their audience won't have the capability to understand or process complicated and 'busy' covers due to their age.  

Moreover, a bar code is in the bottom right corner and the price and date of the issue. This is kept small and out of the way of the rest of the cover as it doesn't conform to the theme yet it needs to be shown. The overall colour scheme is a mix of bright colours to keep it upbeat and conventionally pleasing. 

In addition, '7 Sizzling Posters' is written across the bottom, relating to the image of popular boy band, One Direction. Onomatopoeia is used with the seven and sizzling pronunciation as it rolls of the tongue and can be fun to say for younger girls. In reference to the boy band, the word 'Sizzling' connotes hot and popular which is the conventional opinion of the boy band to many fan girls.