Textual
Analysis –
Comparing
2 contents pages in terms of design – Mojo and NME
The two
publications I have chosen to compare are a Mojo contents page and a NME
contents page. It is clear from the NME contents page that it is a lot more
colourful and the masthead stands out to attract reader’s attention. On the
other hand the Mojo contents page looks really original and plain but has a
much more interesting image compared to NME. The image for Mojo is a dominant
image of Bob Dylan (Folk singer) and Muhammad Ali (Boxer), an image like this
is very strange to see. They have been chosen to feature because they’re iconic;
both were against the Vietnam war and had outstanding reputations. But Mojo
have cleverly used this image because it’s rare to see a boxer with a singer
and it will also be eye catching towards the reader. They both have 1 image
each however the Mojo image looks a lot more interesting and is a classic
picture that was taken many years ago taken with the greatest boxer at that
time so the audience would be drawn to the image. The fact that it’s a black
and white picture shows that it is significant because it’s old and a classic
image that people might respect more, especially older readers who knew them at
the time of their popularity. This dominant image acts as a ‘boost’ and as a
‘centre of visual interest’.
Design wise,
these two contents pages have some things in common including colour schemes;
they both include red, black and white colour schemes. Red, white and black are
effective because they are typical colours that music magazines use (Q uses red
and white also). Red can be used to draw attention to topics.
The Mojo
contents page makes more use of a ‘banner’ which gives basic edition information
on the top of the page – it tells us the month and year and issue number. The
NME contents page has the date, so provides less information. In the Mojo
banner we also find reference to ‘London, Memphis, Wolverhampton’ where Ali’s
head overlaps ‘Wolverhampton’. This looks like some kind of tour list.
Wolverhampton makes it sound a bit humorous because it’s not as glamorous as
places like London or Memphis which has a country music background.
Both
contents pages have columns for text, this is convenient because it is neat and
provides order to the page. The column on the Mojo contents page overlaps the
image and is not transparent, they probably overlapped it because it meant it
could fit on the page and cover Ali’s big black coat which didn’t look very
good. The Mojo contents page uses ‘Cross Heads’ which are words used to break
up large amounts of text, normally taken from the main text. These help
indicate the features in the magazine. The NME contents page also uses this to
present information.
