Front Cover Analysis (NME magazine)

The magazine is a music magazine. The front cover tells me that there is going to be lots of information about artists and the latest information surrounding their musical career along with interviews with artists.

The target audience for the magazine would be those who are interested in the music industry and want to find out what’s going on with an artist. Are they releasing new music soon? Have they got a tour coming up? It would also be males due to the design of the title block and the layout of the front cover.

The central image is using direct mode of address, where the person in the image is looking straight at the reader. The direct gaze helps simulate interaction with each individual reader.

This tells me that the artist on the front cover wants a close relationship with the reader.

Franz Ferdinand is on the front cover and they have given their fans exclusive tracks on a CD which has come with the magazine along with a track-by-track guide.  

The anchorage text says ‘Back with a bang’. This implies that Franz Ferdinand (the band on the front cover) are re-entering the music industry with a big impact.

The overall message the band is giving is that they are trying to say that their music is going to be better than it has been and going to hit the industry hard.

‘Exclusive’ is a buzz word that was used on the front cover. This is telling the audience NME are the only magazine that's going to be covering the story and so will make the reader more interested to read it as they won’t be able to get the story from elsewhere. However, on top of an exclusive interview, NME have also given their readers ‘exclusive tracks and rarities’.

The title block is the largest text on the front cover which has been designed big and bold. The title block being designed like says that the magazine is quite masculine and is aimed at men.

NME stands for New Music Express which connotes that they have new news surrounding artists, be it information about music releases or tour information. As the M in NME stands for music, this means that their magazine isn't specific about the genre of music they include in their magazine which makes it variable to readers and attract a wider audience.

The main font colours used are white, red and yellow. The colour background of the magazine is white. Some of the texts have been written on top of blue and purple background colours. The use of many colours brightens up the magazine making it stand out in newsstands and not blend in with the other magazines. They brighten up the magazine as well so it doesn't look dull and also makes it more appealing to potential readers. Even though more than 3 colours have been used, it doesn't look tacky as the colours used haven’t c lashed with each other but instead complement each other. The colours used are neither feminine nor masculine. This tells me that based on the colours used on the magazine; it isn't specifically aimed at a particular gender even though it actually is aimed at men. The font used is a standard font which makes the text clear and readable. It also prevents the magazine from looking tacky. The magazine is eye-catching because of the big fonts used.

The strategy I think the magazine used to attract the audience was giving the reader of the magazine a free CD. This will give the reader an incentive to buy the magazine as they would be getting something extra alongside the magazine.