Research/ Case Studies (Planning) NME Part 1

The magazine that I have chosen is NME which stands for the New Musical Express.

Front cover Analysis:

The masthead is the logo of the magazine “NME” which is bold, short, and red and on the top left corner, by doing this it makes it more noticeable to the reader and easier to recognize to people who want to by this magazine because of the trade mark. The main image is usually of a very famous person or new artists. The image is a medium wide shot of 3 young girls from the up and coming girl band “Haim”. The girl in the middle (Este) is holding a camera faced to the reader, this will catch the reader’s attention as if she was taking a photo of the reader. The 3 of them are looking directly at the reader which is direct address; this makes them up in the readers face and grabs young male’s attention because of their looks. There is pull quotes being used in this front cover, this is a great way to attract the reader to want to read the article inside the magazine. Their body languages are relaxed and fun which suggest what type of music their do (indie pop). The ethnicity of the Haim is white which is typical to the music genre. They are mostly wearing black which is elegant. There is only one cover line which is very different and not typical even for other magazines, the cover line is placed in the left- medium to catch the buyer’s attention as it is relevant to the image because it’s about Haim.  NME colour scheme is simple but with a ‘pop’ of colour. It uses colours such as red, black and white which is consistent with NME magazines however the colour scheme is not consistent throughout the magazine, the majority of the magazine is white and black but the masthead, cover line and their pull quotes are red which makes them stand out more, also all the text are bold which makes them stand out as well. The pricing and bar codes is at the bottom right and there is another pricing next to the masthead. The skyline goes around the picture frame of the image.

Contents Page

The aim of the contents page is to tell the reader what’s in the magazine and where they can find it. The content page is split up in 3 columns; the first column consist of 3 images with information of the image and page number; the second column has one big image and a smaller one, it also has numerical ordered categories which makes it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for. The third column has 2 images with information and page number and an advert. On the bottom right there is advertisement for the magazines online subscription website, this is very catchy because just as the reader is turning the page it see the advertisement plus it is red which makes it stands out from the contents page and raises publicity of the magazine. The colour scheme of the content page is the same as the one of the front cover. Personally I don’t think that the images reflect the genre of the magazines because the artists are all different in my eyes

DPS

In this double paged spread, one page is used for the images of the girl band (Haim) which matches the image used on the front cover however the image is a wide shot and because the girls are on one level that suggest that there is no lead singer in the band. The other page is used for text; the title of the article takes up 50% of the page and it states in

big, bold, black letter, of who the article is about. The other 50% is the article that is split up in 3 columns which makes it seem like there is less text then there actually is. In the article there is a drop cap which shows where the article begins. There is also a quote from the feature article, it consist of offensive language so tell me that the article or magazine is not for the younger generation. The colour scheme has changed as there is different colours such as blue and pink.