Music Magazine – Front Page Analysis

NME Magazine• NME is one of the most popular music magazines out there at

the current moment. In this issue it sees Lily Allen in a medium shot. In the image she is shown wearing a red plaid shirt with the top few buttons undone, and with messy hair. This was when Lily was going through her “I don’t care” stage, which is further shown in the expression that she is showing on her face. The colour scheme for this front page follows NME’s uniform almost religiously. There are only four colours shown across the page, red, white, black and yellow. This work effectively because it shows throughout that everything that is displayed on the page has its place and is meant to be there. The world famous masthead NME owns has been placed behind the singers head, this may have been done because of how confident that NME are that they don’t have to advertise their magazine excessively in order for it to sell. NME have placed a banner across the top of the page to work as a sort of splash, it advertises further what is inside the magazine, saying that it includes information on the “New Monkeys Tune” this will attract a wider target audience to want to buy the magazine. The target audience of the magazine wold be those who are regular readers of NME, those who like Lily Allen in particular and then those who take an interest in the various adverts around the page

Q Magazine• Here, Lana Del Rey is the model for this issue of Q Magazine. The

masthead of this magazine is just simply “Q”, this makes it instantly recognisable and enables the magazine to stand out amongst rivalling magazines with its white text on a red boxed background. Lana is seen in a medium shot in the centre of the page. She is dressed in a bright white top, showing her innocent side. She also has a tiara on her head, which relates to the fact that she often gets referred to the ‘princess of pop’. But then from the tiara there is blood running down her face, this could mean that she isn’t all she seems to be and that she does have a darker side to her. On the left hand third, we see the words “Lana Del Rey” this could go on to mean that the interview with her inside the magazine is a more personal one than would normally be published in articles. There is also information on the right hand third of the page, here it echo's the left hand to an extent, as it also displays what is included in the magazine, with headlines, and different sized texts. The font of the text is very varied across the page and the size differs depending on what the magazine feels in most important. There is a splash on the right hand side of the cover that tells the possible readers “26 festivals to blow your mind” this will advertise to readers around the ages of 18-30 as they are the most likely to be attending a festival, so it would interest them the most.

Vibe Magazine• In this edition of Vibe magazine it shows Kanye West in a close up

shot. This is effective because it shows heightened emotion of the model, it allows the audience to immediately interact with the personal interview of the celebrity. Another factor that will draw the attention of the reader into buying the magazine would be because it is Kanye West on the front cover, he is arguably the most controversial celebrities around at the moment and he is always in the media’s eye for outrageous things that he has said or done, so this is why it will catch the readers eye. The left hand third also displays headlines in big, bold, bright colours which will allow the reader to instantly read them without having to think about it. I think these are positioned on the left hand side, rather than the right hand side because when looking at a magazine you tend to look to the left hand side, due to this being where most of the headlines are, it is a uniform layout for the majority of magazines. The text on the right hand third of the page is smaller and has more detail in, this could be because the magazine want the reader to read it last, and once they have already intrigued them. The text throughout the page is all the same font and stands out well from the white background colour, whatever the colour of the text. The colour scheme throughout the front cover is a blue, pink, white and black theme. This follows through from the text to the clothes that the model is dressed in, this hints that the article on the artist will flow on from what the headlines have said.