Front Cover Analysis NME

The Masthead

The masthead of the magazine has been placed in the top left corner; this has been done for the same reasons and intentions as on Q magazine, the top left naturally being where most people start to look when viewing a front cover. Again bearing similarity to Q magazine the colours used for the title are similar. NME has mainly chosen to use a combination of red and white. Red is a colour that connotes immediacy and importance, which conveys to the readers that the contents of the magazine will be the latest and most important news. Furthermore the perimeter of the letters have been accented with black, this helps helps detach the title from the background which uses similar colours.

Central Image

The central image is a full body shot of lead singer of My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way. MCR are a very popular band within the rock/punk music genre. By having him on the front cover the magazine is clearly addressing their target audience. Although it is a full body image, the way it has been constructed the viewers attention is mostly drawn to his eyes. This has been achieved by the strong white ambient light protruding from behind his upper body. From evidence of such effective lighting we know that this image has been taken in a studio. Gerard’s costume is predominantly black which lends greatly to maintaining an overall dark and monochromatic style for the front cover

Anchorage text

The anchorage text seen to the left of the central image is split into three parts. The first part is a quote, presented in white text on a red background it stands out the most amongst the three. This shows that what Gerard has to say is valued as the most important thing to the readers. Below that is the band’s name in a large bold font. Lastly is the reasoning for the punk rockers appearance on the front cover, which as the text reveal is the release of MCR’s new album.

Puffs

The puffs used on the front of this magazine are tailored specifically so that only people familiar with the music genre know of the bands mentioned. Whilst music acts such as Vampire Weekend and Sliede might be more commonly known due to their popularity acts such as the late Jay Reatard will only be known by fans of rock music. The puffs are numerous and are spread across the magazines front cover. By doing this it connotes that the magazine is packed with the latest information.

Layout and Eyeflow

The eye flow of this magazine is very simple. Most will start first by observing the very apparent NME title. After do so their eyes will travel down the length of Gerard body. The anchorage test and the puffs have been placed either side off him to take that into account. Again bearing similarity to Q magazine things of importance are in proportion to the amount of space they take up on the front cover. Clearly the emphasis of this issues front cover is MCR’s story, as the central image couples with the anchorage text take up the largest amount of space. Unlike Q magazine however in terms of layout everything is placed around Gerard, careful not to overlap the space of the image that he occupies. Even the title block is placed behind him. On the front cover of Q magazine however, both the text and title block overlap her image. This difference is perhaps brought about by the age range each magazine is aimed at. Younger audiences are be more interested in the person portrayed on the front cover (how they look and dress attracts their attention), so it makes sense for them not to obscure their central image too much.