The colour scheme of the front cover in NME incorporates the typical rock music cover scheme colours of red, white and black. The background is white, with the masthead and main headlines in red text. This is designed to attract readers as the bright colours catch people’s eyes.
There is only one photo on this front cover, it is a posed studio photo shoot, it has also been taken in monochrome which has probably done to make the photo fit in even more with the white, red and black colour scheme of the cover. It also associates the person who is in the photograph with the colour scheme and everything that it stands for.
There is quite a lot of writing on the front cover, but because of the way that it is set out, it doesn’t look quite as crowded as Kerrang! The formal layout and font suggests that this magazine is targeted at a slightly older audience. It is similar in appearance to the front cover of the Q magazine that I also analysed earlier in my market research. Overall, the cover of NME magazine has quite a formal look to it; it’s not as clean looking as Q but has the same colour scheme and the same idea of having just one photograph of their main artist from this edition on the cover. This slightly more formal layout suggests that the magazine is meant to appeal to a wider audience than something like Kerrang! Magazine.
There are two photographs on the contents page; they are of colour live performances, which is stereotypically more associated with the rock genre of music they do not take up much of the page. The photos are dominated by the text and this is the first magazine that I’ve researched that has an article on its contents page. They also have a few lines of description under all of their headings, this attention to detail and amount of writing suggests that NME magazine is designed for slightly older target audiences as they would be more likely to enjoy reading more information about music than looking at pictures.
The contents page has a lot of information on it, far more than any of the other magazines that I have researched, this might suggest that NME could be targeting a wider audience than any of their rivals, and are trying to get more information into the same amount of space. The fonts are very simple, and are very generic; this again ties with the idea of NME being a magazine that covers most of all the musical genres.
The colour scheme for the double page is still the white, black and red that has been used on the cover and the contents page. Again unlike the front cover there is more black used than red. The red has been used to highlight a word from an extract from the interview and to act as a background for a small extract in the lower centre of the first page in the spread
There is one photograph on the double page spread; it is a posed studio photo shoot. Unlike the cover the picture is in colour, although the person’s costume matches with the colour scheme of the magazine, wearing black. This is again especially when combined with the sunglasses, another connotation for rock music. The idea of rock music and rock being rebellious is also backed up by the swearing in the quote that has been extracted at the top of the first page. The fact that it hasn’t been censored also suggests that NME magazine is designed for a older audience. Overall the double page spread looks quite clean, the white background means that there is no distractions away from the interview and it looks like the magazine is trying to cater for a wide audience with an even distribution of text and pictures, however the writing style and format suggests that primarily it is directed at an older audience.
NME magazine is published by IPC Media, who are a subsidiary of Time Inc. Who are in turn a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. IPC Media also publish over sixty over magazines which cover a wide range of topics and genres. NME also has a website, a radio station and TV channel.
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