NME Front Cover Analysis

This front cover is from the New Musical Express magazine, or NME. This is a magazine targetted at teenage+ audiences with an interest in a certain type of music. It is aimed at a different target audience than other music magazines eg. Kerrang because of the type of music it supports and holds articles on.

We see the main colour palette chosen for this weeks edition of NME is white, pink and black, everything in white,pink and black has relevance to the main cover story '10 YEARS OF THE STROKES' Contrasting with the black and white photograph, the text really stands out and is eye-catching.

The use of simplistic font and large bold text allows the reader to easily scan the page and immediatly judge the magazine. Everything on this front cover is outlined by simple, shapes eg. the black outline around the image, the exact circles with text in them. The simplicity of all of these things lets us concentrate on the much more detailed photograph and the surrounding text does not detract from the photograph and the main focus of the magazine.

We get more of an insight into the magazine with the banner along the bottom reading:

'PLUS INSIDE: THE KILLERS * KLAXONS * VAMPIRE WEEKEND'

If you see this on a stand in a shop and you are interesting in the bands on the lower banner, you will be intrigued to read on/ flick through the NME to find out what the magazine is saying about them. While flicking through the magazine you might see another article about a band you have also heard of, this will lead to a sale of the magazine, and is a very clever advertising technique.

I really like the use of a black and white image on the front of the NME as I think it makes the text stand out and for the layout to look simplistic and stylish rather than overcrowded and garish. It is something I would definitly consider when creating my own front cover. I like the small colour variation also, but I think the use of pink, no matter how stereotypical, would possibly put off male readers. I also like how only one image to represent one article has been used as the 'cover story' (again something I would consider.) But, if you see this in a shop and you have no interest in The Strokes you may not even consider picking it up and looking at the other article's inside, this is a risky marketing technique.