Joshua Scott AS Media
C O V E R A n a ly s i s
The masthead for MOJO magazine features the title and a strapline ''The Music Magazine''. The main title ''MOJO'' is a word often used to describe a spell a talisman or a charm, it is also more commonly used to describe sex-appeal or unique talent. This does actually fit pretty well with the genre as classic rock is usually associated with goths (as well as other cliques) and their culture is based around around spell and dark arts. The typeface used fro the title is very sleek and gives off an almost gothic feel which fits really well with the target genre of the magazine. The font is white with a light grey dropshadow to make it a appear as the title is jumping out of the cover which gives it a lot of depth and a very unique look.
The strapline ''The Music Magazine'' is presented in a way that makes it appear like a signature on a CD cover or T-shirt which could link back to the concert based culture of classic rock where the artists would autograph the fans possessions. The font is also very clean with a subtle black dropshadow to give it more depth in an identical fashion to the main title.
Mojo is a monthly magazine originally produced by Emap and since 2008 Bauer Media Group has produced it. There are an incredible 79,345 copies in circulation as of June 2013. The magazine is published monthly and costs £4.50.
The magazine is wholly devoted to classic rock music and the prominant artists within the genre. Due to the genre the target age of the magazine is the 35 and over category, this doesn't stop a wide variety of people from reading it though. It's an excellent market to grab hold of as large majority of their audeince will have grown up or been a teenager when classic rock was mainstream and owning the magazine would make a lot on sense to them. Also this age group has the most buying power so it makes economic sense to target this particular group.
The magzine depicts a very dark feel for this issue. This is done through the use of the black background and black CD on the front. The text is bold and strong but doesn't take up a huge amount of the page which leaves some real estate for the main image and CD. Furthermore, the text is typed used a gothic font and features dark red, pastel blue and white to keep it really simple. The blue and red are used sparingly to highlight the most important information or help to reduce the impact of some other articles. Tha main article is an exclusive intervies with Siouxie and The Banshees and that's typed in white with red hiding the ''and'' as it's a less significant part of the text. An extract of the interview is located above the main article and is in pale blue to give a degree of separation between the two pieces of text.
The main image is of Siouxie from the band ''Siouxsie and The Banshees. She is pictured with a wooden expresion with stereotypical womens' gothic makeup consisting of white foundation and powder, a heavy black contour of the cheekbones, deep red lips and very dramatic eye makeup consisting of black and white. She also has a line of white under her eyes to make them appear bigger. unsually, she has a thick and straight eyebrow which is not the status quo for this style. However, it adds to her aggressive and cold look which really works well.
Not much of her clothing, hair or accessories are visible but what we can see is a large red earring constructed with large red jewels which complement her lips and red hair which flows in all directions as if she has tangled or unkept hair. She's wearing a pure white silk neckscarf and a blazer with large, white silk lapels. The balck of her blazer is not very visible at all and the scarf helps to separate her head from the background and really give it a lot of presence on the cover. This means that she will be instantly recognizable and the audience will immediately jump to buy the magazine when they recognize her to gain information exclusive to MOJO magazine.
There are several lures and offers spread over the cover which will help entice the audience into buying the magazine. There is a CD cover which takes up a significant amount of the real estate that could be used for other features. To solve this MOJO gave the CD a very similar look to the rest of the cover. It features a photo of what appears to be Siouxie with a peculiar blue pattern over her pale skin. She aslo has black hair that blends into the background strong red lips that match the text. The text is identical in its use of colour to the rest of the cover but it uses a different font so that the CD can still look presentable and unique on its own.
At the top of the magazine there is a banner advertising an article on George Harrison and ''his strange '70s''. He was the lead guitarist in The Beatles, a band that was often on MOJO's cover so the readers would know exactly who he was and would most likely want to read futher into his life and what happened in the '70s to make them strange for him.
There is also a sticker placed cleverly to the right of the main title so that people's eyes are immediately drawn to it after seeing the title. It shows that there are 145 reviews within the magazine and lists four artists while saying ''and more!''. This would really encourage the reader to buy the magazine as they'd want to find out who else in the reviews, what they said about them and what else they can find out about those artists.
C O N T E N T S A N A L Y S I S
On the first page you can see the word ‘contents’ in an identical font used on the cover of the magazine for the main title. This ties together the cover and the contents and starts to build the distinctive house style of Mojo. Additionally, the red, white and blue colour scheme is recycled and is also used for the contents page which further develops the house style and maintains the presentation of the magazine. The first page of the contents also has a large photo of Bryan Ferry. This photo differs from the cover as it’s slightly more casual and a bit more detached as it’s a long shot. The long shot allows for more room on the page for furniture such as the columns of text and the large header. At the bottom of the page there’s a pull quote along with a headline ‘Bryan Ferry counts the ‘cost’ of fame P.44’. This approach almost seems like the magazine has a second cover which really gives it a high class feel. The pull quote on the contents is a brilliant idea as it only encourages the reader to read even further into the magazine.
The second contents page is much busier than the first page. Pages with more images are much more likely to catch the eye than a page of solid text and Mojo have realised this and a very image dense page directly opposite to a full page ad. This means the reader is very likely to stop and read this page when they spot the pictures while flipping through. This means the reader will see all the headlines in the corners of the images and see the bold contents column and will most likely turn to one of the headlines to continue reading.
Additionally, there is a footer than contains the magazine’s main contributors for the month. This is very important as it adds value to the magazine and makes the reader feel a lot more connected with the content they are reading as it involves them in the process required to produce the magazine. This inclusion gives the reader a bloated sense of importance which will encourage them to keep reading and also makes it more likely that they’ll buy future issues.
Mojo has a unique style of contents page, or in this case, pages. It has its contents page split into two with one column of text on each and the rest is filled with images. This allows for more space for the same amount of articles which means that text can be in a larger font which will make it easier to read. Further, it allows for more detailed summaries of the articles underneath their headline which makes the reader much more likely to turn to an article and read it. Also, more space means that there can be more pictures on the contents page in larger sizes than usual. This makes it much more attractive to potential reader and will make them stop flipping through the magazine to take a look at the contents. This means that they are immediately exposed to the articles in the magazine and that pulls the reader in, making them much more likely to buy the magazine.
The design of each of the text column is very well done here. Each column is a semi-transparent white square that’s broken down into different sections with a little red wraparound banner. The ‘Mojo Filter’ section has a blue banner to differentiate it from the other sections and to signify its importance, which is a great touch. The headlines being broken down into five sections is great as it makes it very easy to find what you’re looking for and makes the magazine very easy to navigate. The column is broken down into two sections, a narrow one for the page numbers and a wider one for the headlines and their summaries. The page numbers are large and coloured red to help them contrast strongly with the background. The headlines are quite large and in black text and each of them have their own summary in small black text. Mojo has used colour very effectively here as the red page numbers draw the eye first as they’re the boldest feature in the columns and the eye then tracks to the bold text of the headlines which makes reading the contents page very easy.
D P S A N A L Y S I S
The double page spread in MOJO shows a large photo of the artist one half of the spread with the text and page furniture on the other half of the page. The first features are large close up photo of the artist, in this case, Vashti. The photo is shot in black and white and has shallow depth of field. The photo shows her looking up from the reader from a book. This engages the reader and would catch their eye as they flick through the magazine. Additionally, the photo has quite a lot of noise in it. This along with the black and white gives a retro feel which sets up the theme for the article.
On the other page there’s a smaller image of Vashti in a much more casual position. She’s still looking out at the reader which keeps them engaged as their eyes are drawn to the the image. Her casual pose helps to make the reader feel comfortable and relaxed while reading the article, as if they’re actually talking to the artist themselves. The image is styled to look like a polaroid resting on the page. This adds to the vintage theme and makes the article appear less formal.
At the top of the page there’s pull quote from the artists saying ‘i was shocked at how misrepresented i was’. The quote is displayed in a large, simple font which really catches the eye and gives the page a really solid structure. Additionally, ‘i was shocked’ is printed in red which draws a lot more attention to it and makes it the most significant part of the pull quote. It raises questions for the reader and that would encourage them to read into the article to find out the context of the quote.
There’s a badge in the top right corner of the second page that sets up the theme of the article for us. It says ‘Mojo 20 the starts revisit running 20’. The article celebrates 20 years of Mojo and the badge reflects this with it’s retro feel. The ribbons shown within the badge look dated when compared to the banners on the other modern articles within the magazine. This gives us a retro theme which fits the whole topic of the article. The banner above the start of the article also fits the retro theme and helps to keep the theme constant throughout the page.
The little fact file near the bottom of the page gives us some background information about the artist which allows us to understand the artist a little bit better. It also sparks an interest within the reader which would make them want to read the article to find out more about the artist and why they’re featured in the article. It also helps to break up the text and prevents the page from becoming a solid block of text which isn’t very nice to look at.