Tuesday, 25 February 2014

NME Front Cover Analysis

The feature article photograph for this issue of NME includes all four members of the main band the magazine is focusing on. Each member is tilting their head towards the camera apart the man at the back, who appears to be facing away from the camera. This could suggest that he is the least important member of the band as he is the only one looking away. However, it could also suggest that he doesn’t seem to care that much, creating a laid back attitude to the magazine and therefore the band. Although as the other band members are looking towards the camera it suggests that they have a more serious attitude towards the band and are serious about being ‘back with a bang’. Each member in the feature article photograph is wearing a pair of sunglasses suggesting importance and implying they have a high status. To further add to the implication of importance, the photograph has been shot with a slightly low angle shot creating the impression that you are slightly looking up at them, as if they are more important than everyone else as they are looking down at you. In the photograph they are not particularly wearing bold bright colours so does not give out a loud noisy impression of hard-core rock music. They are wearing subtle darker toned clothing that contrasts with the off-white background that has been used; this therefore makes these colours stand out much more without needing to be too colourful. Although the colours used are not particularly bright, the contrast of the image is high and a good quality photograph has been used so makes the cover stand out, attracting attention to the magazine.

The white background and darker colours of the clothes also make the plugs and puffs stand out as each piece of text has either white writing, bright yellow or bright red. This makes them more noticeable and eye catching. The use of these colours doesn’t overcrowd the cover or make it too complicated to read. It makes the text a lot easier to focus on as it is not right in your face so is purely drawing in attention to which parts are most important. The fonts used on all the features on the cover are a similar font but not the same size, implying that the most important things are in a bigger font to attract attention.

The layout of the magazine is fairly straight forward as although the masthead is the biggest font on the cover, it has pretty much the same font used as the all other text and is not necessarily the thing that stands out most suggesting that it is a well-known popular magazine so doesn’t really need to be. The alliteration used in the cover line ‘Back with a bang’ emphasises the ‘bang’ suggesting that them coming back is going to big like an explosion and stands out as a bomb would. The ‘back’ and ‘bang’ are the same font as the rest of the cover line but these two words are made to stand out as a slightly bigger font has been used. To attract further attention to this, the bold white colour has been used to be noticeable against the rest of the text. The bold white text also emphasises the importance of the main cover lines. The same bold white text has been used on ‘Look! Free Franz Ferdinand CD’ to also express importance. The exclamation mark used on the ‘Look!’ is the only exclamation mark used throughout the whole cover showing its importance and drawing in attention to the free CD. The puff ‘free’ and ‘CD’ however are not in white; they are in a bold red drawing the reader in to make you buy the magazine and focusing in on the free CD. The puff ‘Plus’ is also in red attracting the reader to the magazine and trying to persuade you to buy it suggesting that it is filled with information that you could be the first one to know if you buy it.

The use of the lights around the arrows and in the reflection of the mans glasses suggest importance and high status as they symbolise the lights that a big Hollywood movie star might have around their dressing room mirrors. The overall tone of the magazine suggests a serious tone towards being ‘back with a bang’ as if their comeback will be taken seriously and will be big and important as if they are not just messing around

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