TEXTUAL ANALYSIS.

"Common Sense"

Front Cover

The Masthead immediately stands out on the front cover of "Common Sense" as it is in bright colours (Red and Blue) whilst the background image is mainly black. The background image is of the band, Green Day. This gives the magazine an overall style of rock/punk music which makes the target audience those who are appreciative of this type of music. A brightly coloured banner is spread out accross the bottom of the page which states the headline of the story "American Idiots! Greenday hit the UK..." This implies that it is an Exclusive story. The blue background is complimentary of the white writing over the top as it stands out and draws the readers eye towards it.

The use of Cover lines to state the additional stories in the magazie is affective because they will draw the reader in if the headings are catchy. The font house style is yellow, Sans-serif, capital letters; the yellow helps the text to stands out on the black background. They represent what is inside of the magazine and are directed at students of Luton Sixth Form College ages 16 - 18.
In the top right corner, in capital letters, with a bright yellow background 'FREE' states that you dont have to pay for the magazine. This will attract the reader not only because it is brightly coloured but also to the fact that they dont have to pay for the magazine.

Contents page

The contents page has a white background with plain black writing - house style sans-serif. On the left of the page their is an editorial accompanied by two pictures of the editors themselves. This stands out as some of the text is highlighted blue therefore drawing the readers attention to it. In the middle of the page there is a collumn which is the contents. It has the page numbers in bold font with a lure of the stories to intice the reader. There is a masthead which states 'CONTENTS' that stands out in big bold font. This tells the reader exactly what they are looking at. On the right side of the page there are pictures which represent a story, this is quite mysterious for the reader as they will want to know what the picture has to do with the story, provoking them to have a look through the magazine. Each picture has a page number beside it to tell the reader which page to go to, the image of a cadburys creme egg implies a story about choclate which im sure would appeal to most students.

In the bottom left corner there is a Byline which states who the cover is designed by and who the cover photograph is of. In the opposite, right top corner there is a graphic of the mastehead which appears on the front page but much smaller. It represents the magazine and continues to promote it by having the same of the magazine on every page.