Textual Analysis Comparison

Front Cover

Masthead
All three magazines use different colouring on the name but they use bold lettering so it can be seen clearly.

Both the NME and Calcio Italia have the issue number and the price underneath the name of the magazine while Mojo has that information at the back of the magazine.

Straplines
Both the NME and Calcio Italia use bright colours on their straplines to make them stand out. Although the strapline on Mojo does stand out, it is achieved by colouring it white over a dark background.

Headline
All three magazines position their headline near the middle of the page, so it will be one of the first things that viewers will see.

All three magazines colour the headlines (and straplines) with colours that are reflective of the subject of the magazine. Calcio Italia mainly uses green, red and white which are the colours of the Italian flag and also blue which is the colour of Italian football. The NME frequently uses gold and red to reflect the Christmas theme of the issue. Finally, uses white writing over a grey and black background to reflect the 60s feel and theme of the issue.

Enticing Viewers
The NME, Calcio Italia and Mojo all use celebrities to attract the audience, although different stars are used depending on the subject of the magazine. Both NME and Calcio Italia advertise free posters to persuade viewers to buy the magazine. Mojo on the other hand, does not use any free give aways but does attract a specific target audience of fans of the featured band by creating an issue exclusive to The Beatles. The positions of the celebrities are similar in all three magazines. They are all positioned near the middle of the page to catch the eye of viewers and persuade them to buy the magazine. However the images on the front cover of NME and Calcio Italia are photographs, while the image on the front cover of Mojo is an illustration of The Beatles. The language in the magazines are all very similar. NME, Calcio Italia and Mojo all use language that relates to the subject of the magazine to entice viewers to read on. Also, the language is very simple in all three of the magazines, this widens the target audience that only using specific terms will have limited.

Contents page

Images
Both Calcio Italia and The NME use images of celebrities to entice the readers and to catch their attention. Mojo on the other hand uses an image of a screaming fan to illustrate the term: "Beatle mania" which is associated with this magazine.

Page references
Both mojo and Calcio Italia list their articles in categories, while The NME uses a band index, where the bands are put into alphabetical order so it is very easy to find the band you want. This system is a lot easier to use than the contents pages in Mojo or Calcio Italia.

Columns
All three magazines are designed for simple reading using vertical columns and normal sized font. However both Mojo and The NME have a section of the page which shows extra articles for the reader to veiw whil Calcio Italia simply lists the articles in page order in each category.

Language
All three magazines use simple language on their contents pages so they can be very accessible to a wide audience.

Text
All three magazines use quite small text for their contents pages because there is quite a lot of text to fit on one page however, since the extra articles which are listed in The NME and Mojo are in less abundance the font is larger so it can fill up the entire page. In terms of colour both Mojo and the NME use the color gold/yellow for their page numbers to emphasise their importance and in all three magazines bold italics are used on the names of the articles again to emphasize their importance.

Double Page spread

Colors
In terms of color, all three magazines use colors that reflect the themes of the article, The NME use the colors of black and white in order to reflect the band "Glasvegas" who are quite a dark and depressing band. Mojo also uses the colors of black and white, however these colors are used to reflect the retro theme of the magazine and they also use the colors of red, white and blue (the colors of the American flag) as a contrast and to also to reflect the American theme of the article. Calcio Italia on the other hand uses the colors of red, white and grey which are the colors of the football teams depicted in the article.

Text
In all three magazines small black text is used over the double page spread which will be easier to see over a lighter background.

Columns
All three magazines use vertical columns to allow easy reading. However, in Mojo the text is written around the background image unlike Calcio Italia and the NME which have their text written below or above their images.

Language
In all three magazines the language is very formal, and use lexical terminology to appeal to their target audience.

Tom Hutchin