Full analysis of NME magazine

The magazine that I have chosen to do a full analysis of is the popular NME. This is a front cover of the popular NME magazine which is aimed at a mass market because of the 400,000 readership figures. The magazine is published weekly across Europe in order to compete with other magazines similar to it. The target audience of the magazine is men who are aged 17-30 this is supported by the evidence of that the percentage of male readers to female readers is 73%/27%. Taking this into account NME has to make sure that the cover will attract the target audience to ensure that they will read the magazine. This particular front cover that I have chosen is a good example of how it will attract the male audience. The attraction to the magazine would be the main picture and the caption to accompany it. The main picture is set out to grab the reader; it has been positioned so that it seems he is going to grab you. The caption that goes with the picture is specifically aimed at a male audience as it a type of saying that would be said more by a male audience. This particular quote that they have picked out of the article is the best suited to the target audience in which they are aiming at with this issue of the NME.
The colour scheme of the magazine is kept to three main colours red, black and white. This ensures that the magazine doesn’t look as though it has been done unprofessionally. The font of the magazine is kept to 3 main styles of writing in order to keep the NME style of the magazine. The news sticker keeps to the font and colour scheme and retaining the male audience look. The background of the magazine is a wall with graffiti which connotes the male audience as this is something they are more likely to do than females.
This particular contents page is out of an issue of the mass market magazine NME. The first feature of the contents page is the scaled down magazine master head and ‘this week’ to infer that it is the contents page of the magazine. Other magazines just tend to use the ‘contents’ which make NME different. The date of the contents is also located underneath. Down the right hand side of the page is the features of the magazine which are made simpler by the use of subheadings such as ‘news’ and ‘radar’. The style of font used is kept consistent throughout the magazine making this font a ‘NME font’. Across the bottom of the contents page is an advertisement for the NME, this is usually for subscriptions or NME related products/features. Down the left hand side of the magazine is a band index which is featured in every magazine of the NME this is another style of the NME. This is where the reader is able to look out for their favourite bands in each issue of the magazine. Also this is a way the reader can easily locate where the band article will be rather than having to trundle through the magazine to find them. The bands are always featured in red and the page numbers are always black which is keeping the house style of the magazine. On the contents page of the NME always in the centre is a picture in relation to a feature in the magazine. Sometimes this image may not be related to anything, just a story to tell. The picture will have a small paragraph to go with it and also a ‘continued on’ page number for the reader to relate to the paragraph.
This feature article is about two bands (Mumford and sons & goliath). The article is set out across two pages which contain multiple pictures and a lengthy article.
The names of the two bands are set out in the top left hand corner of the article in a bold large black font. To accompany this there is a versus sign in red which is made to look very small as it has been created as though you are looking at it through a magnifying glass. This is something that I particularly like about the page as this has some invention rather than having something dull and plain. As always there is a sentence under the bold writing of the page which is featured in the article, this is slightly larger than that of the article to make it stand out from the page. The actual article for this double page spread features 6 half page columns across both of the pages which is what tends to be the style for NME magazine when they do feature articles. As this article is about two bands and the comparison it is an interesting read for the music fans.
This article has 8 pictures set out across it in the ratio of4:4 which are showing a fair review on both bands. This is something that I may have to take into account when I am creating my feature article as I would not want my magazine article to seem biased to any one band. The live pictures of each band are set out in different corners of each page which have little captions with them to tell the reader what the image is about. These pictures also show the type of crowd they attract and the target audience of their music. On the right hand side of the page there is a collage of 6 different photos from either band. Having all the photos grouped together makes the page look tidy and professional whereas if they were to be spread across the page then this may not make the page look as professional. This is a typical NME style as they have picture representations of the band followed by the captions to go with each.