NME LIIAR Review



Language

The masthead of NME is in large block letters which are simple in design.  Though it isn’t the biggest text on the page it is still large enough to be eye-catching to people who see the magazine.

The masthead of the contents page is also in large text though is slightly more ‘formal’ than the cover. The masthead reads ‘Inside this Week’ which is a better contents masthead than simply using ‘contents’ which some magazines may use.

No masthead is present on the double page spread because it is a story that doesn’t appear every week in the magazine so you can’t really associate a recurring masthead with it. Though this is the case the title may be treated as such being the biggest writing on the page and announcing what the page is.

 The main image of the cover is the majority of the page. It is in black and white which though isn’t a very colourful approach makes the magazine different from competitors may look and might just be for this issue grabbing long time readers attention by making them ask why the cover is different this issue. The main image is taken as a medium close up, showing the head and shoulders. It doesn’t follow the conventional main image which would make eye contact with viewers but this way is still effective as it adds a sense of mystery to the cover which could be relevant to a story.

 Many images are present on the contents page. The main one would be the central image which seems to stand out from the others. The subject of the image looks at the audience directly unlike most of the others so our eyes are drawn to this image first.

 The house colours of the cover of NME are black, white and orange. The orange stands out strongly on the black and white background. It makes all the writing in orange easy to read and stand out more.  The black and white is because the image on this particular cover is a black and white image so using any other colours would be overpowering and draw attention away from the image. They fit the best.

 Other than the images themselves on the contents page the two colours are black and white.  This follows the house colours and doesn’t distract our attention from the images.

 The house colours on the double page spread are chosen to fit with the story. To do this they keep the white background and use black for the text however they add green. This fits because the story is the ‘Roots of Veronic Falls’ so a colour was chosen which would associate this but wouldn’t heavily deviate from the house colours of the magazines.

 The price and barcode of the magazine are in the bottom corner because it isn’t particularly important unless somebody wishes to buy the magazine.  By being placed here it doesn’t cover any other features of the magazine cover.

Teasers of what is in the magazine are on the cover and sort of on the contents. On the cover they’re spread out so they circle the main image. The title of each one is in orange so they’re easy to see and they allow people to see what is in the magazine at a glance. 

The teasers in the contents are under some of the images. They act as anchorage for these images as well and tell us what the images are about and where in the magazine we can find the story.

 The main story is in bigger writing than the masthead and is one of the first things we see. It draws our attention to the magazine, especially to those who are fans of what the story is about.

Institution

 NME is a national magazine published in the UK. It focuses on the UK market though publishes stories about both national and international bands. It likely has an established market in the UK so focuses on this market.

Ideology

NME shows artists of popular music at both their best and worst publishing the most interesting stories about them. It specifically chooses interesting stories which will attract the most readers and may over exaggerate on stories because it makes it more interesting to read.

Audience

NME has a large target audience because it features popular music which can cover many genres. It also means that people who have heard well known songs may recognise items on the cover and may pick up the issue because of it.

Representation

Artists in NME are represented as they would look on stage. It gives a reader instant recognition of who they are. It shows them as successful which they are to be in a popular music magazine and will make us feel bad if a successful artist is having a bad time in their life because we know how talented they look.