Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Sam Hill

NME

NME stands for New Musical Express and has published weekly since 1952. It first started as a newspaper and then in the 80’s changed their publication to a magazine format. NME is well known for their articles on punk rock artists.

Masthead

Selling Lines

Bar code

Some what a date of magazine

Masthead & Selling Line

NME is the masthead of the magazine. It is a well known logo of the NME magazine. The main colour schemes for NME is red and white. It is always found in the top left hand corner with the meaning of the abbreviations underneath. Sometimes the main theme of that weeks magazine is found above the logo such as the one to the right.

Main Image

The image on the cover of NME is usually a band or singer of some kind. Text can be found above and behind the image. The setting of the image can be anything from just a plain white/ black background to a recording studio like the one in this image.

Cover Lines & Main Sells

The cover lines of the magazine are ‘Jamie T’, ‘ Wild Beasts’. ‘Muse’ is the main cover line, meaning they are the main story in the magazine. It also might mean that, that story has the most pages whereas the smaller cover lines would only be on one page or a two page spread.

Contents

The band index tells readers what band is on each page.

This is advertising a subscription for the magazine.

This is part of an article that is found in the magazine.

Contents

Title of the contents page.

This tells the reader the main stories and where they are in the magazine.

Date of the magazine.

Pages

‘Radar’ is title of the section of the magazine.

‘The Teenagers’ is the title of the article.

Small side stories.The text above gives readers information about the band.

The image covers one of the two page spread.

Q

Q is a monthly music magazine distributed from the UK. Similar to NME it doesn’t always publish news about popular music and often has articles aimed at older readers. Q also has it’s own radio station.

Masthead

Selling Lines

Bar code

Masthead & Selling Line

‘Q’ is the masthead of the magazine, it is also the logo. The logo is usually found in the top left hand corner. Underneath there is ‘Britain's Biggest Music Magazine’, implying that it is the best and well known.

Main Image

The image on this magazine is Dave Grohl, a well known musician in a surreal desert background, with a guitar in his hands. This tells us that the main story in this magazine is about him.

Cover Lines & Main Sells

The cover line for this magazine is ‘Exclusive Interviews.. Foo Fighters.. Why Dave Grohl’s in a field of his own’. There is also a second cover line that says ‘Giant 62-page summer guide’. These cover lines advertise the content of the magazine.

Contents

The title of the page.

The article featured.

The contents does not tell the reader what is on every page.

Large image of a band.

This content occurs every months.

Date and website of magazine.

PagesImage fills the first page of the double page spread.

The text is very formal compared to NME.

Comparison

Q and NME are very similar; the logo is found in the top left hand corner and the logos are both red and white. The main sells of both are in big white text in front of the main image. NME have a colour scheme of red and white, whereas Q uses red, white, black and gold. Q’s text layout is very formal, meaning that text is along the side and image is in the middle. NME has more of a messy text. The text is all over the cover. The format and colours of the cover reflect the audience that the magazine is aiming for.