LIIAR ANALYSIS OF EXISTING MAGAZINES: NME

LIIAR ANALYSIS OF EXISTING MAGAZINES: NME

Front Cover

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This magazines main colours used are yellow, white, red and black these colours are used to build up a house style and are consistently used on the whole of the front cover. The text refers to these colours and so do the banners and advertisements added in. The model is also wearing a black and red shirt this is done purposely to highlight the consistency of the colour use and house style. The colours used are associated with rock which describes the models genre of music and makes it appeal to a rock target audience. The house style works really well because it indicated the theme and genre of the magazine really well and the consistency of colour used makes it clear that NME is a well known and trusted magazine and the house style does run throughout the magazine. It is important to have a running house style as it looks professional and people learn to trust the magazine through recognisable colours and themes.

The masthead is in big blocked writing to stand out on the page it is also highlighted in white, highlighting to the audience that it is a big magazine. The models head blocks out the E in the masthead this suggests that the magazine is so big and so well-known that you don’t even need the whole title name to recognise what magazine it is. The name is short and easy to remember and recognise which is good for a magazine as the name starts t become the icon, everybody remembers and recognises it in the shop or wherever you see it advertised.

The main image is a medium close up the model is making eye contact with the camera this is done intentionally because the producer of the magazine has wanted the audience to create a relationship with the model through eye contact to persuade you to want to read her story and buy the magazine. The model has also been asked to pose in that way to match the house style, the colours used are associate with rock they have asked the model to pose in that way to give off a ‘rock chick’ attitude. By giving off this pose whilst making a relationship with the audience makes the audience want to know why she has so much attitude it makes them want to know more about her which is what attracts them to her story and makes them buy the magazine.

The main article relates to the model this Is clearly indicated. It is the biggest text on the page and features the models name again making it clear the story is aimed at her. There is also a teasing device used which is text taken from the story to tease the audience about what the article includes. This is done to make them want to buy the magazine. The text is the biggest on the page emphasising again that this is the biggest story of the magazine it is also done in white and red using the house style colours building up a positive recognisable brand for the public to trust. The text is slanted which indicates the models life is on a tilt and is not balanced it suggests she is going through a rocky stage of life and needs to get back on her feet and make her life more balanced. This is done very clever to give the audience a hint of what the story is about however not making it completely obvious to the audience so they get a teaser however not the whole story again this is all done in production to invite the audience in and make them purchase the product.

The price of the magazine is £2.00 this is reasonable because the people who are going to buy the magazine will be teens around 14+ and that is an affordable price out of their pocket money or minimum wage. Teenagers are not going to spend big amounts of money on magazines as they want spare money to do their own things on a weekend, however in society now it is almost certain that everyone knows what is happening in the media world so teens will spend minimum money on  these magazines to find out the latest in the media world as that is what society has taught us.

The magazine also has teasing contents along the bottom and top of the page. These advertise other stories within the magazine showing what is offers and value for money. The banner is red to stand out and stars names are added along the bottom in white to highlight that this magazine includes the best stars that you have to know about, this might not be true however the magazine puts this message into our heads by using these teasing devices to persuade us into reading about these stars.

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This magazine is not technically unique in the market there are other magazines like NME however not to this quality this magazine offers a range of different stories and starts making the magazine target not just one specific audience many different audiences. There is not just one type of rock there are several and this magazine targets several not just one specific. You also get value for money the magazine offers several huge stars and stories which Is what teens want to see. To make it more unique they could maybe advertise more competitions or free gifts on the front cover to make the audience more drawn into buying it and something different from other rock magazines as hardly any offer these techniques.

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This magazine gives off a rock image, rock music gives an impression of attitude and it shows the purity of someone’s thoughts, rock singers sing from the heart however they are not afraid to sing how life can be unfair as well as fair. The magazine obviously wants to give a positive attitude towards the magazine but it depends if you like rock or not. If you don’t the magazine looks quite negative and aggressive but to people who understand rock the magazine is positive it gives a range of stories and sneak peeks of people’s new music and shows how the model wants to put her life back on a balanced note which is obviously positive.

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The magazine is targeted at teens around 14+ who are into rock music. This is made obvious by the attitudes of the middle and colours used that are associated with rock like red and black. I targeted 14+ because people younger don’t understand the meaning of the music and the attitudes can be to aggressive for them to learn. Also more people 14+ listen to this kind of music. I would say the magazine is for a mainstream audience.

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The representation of this magazine is attitude and rock. They want the music and magazine to be represented in a positive way towards their target audience. They have used the appropriate colours and poses and stories to attract them into the magazine to make continuous sales.

Contents page

For the contents page they have kept the house style running which really works with building up a band image they haven’t added any colour to interfere with the house style which is also a very professional thing to do. The background has also stayed white again keeping a simple running house style making it clear that the contents page belongs with the cover which will also make people trust the magazine more and sign up for continuous sales which has been advertised at the bottom. This also works as a tease device saying to the audience “save over £45” which teens will be interested in because they can save more money for their own purposes.  It also works for the magazine as they will be making more continuous sales and building up a better fan base to be spread by word of mouth. Word of mouth id one of the best ways of advertising because people trust their friends the most and if they say it’s a good trustworthy magazine the more likely other people are to buy it.

The masthead is again used as an icon to the magazine it has been put on the contents page again to make it even more exaggerated that the contents page belongs to NME as a whole. It’s again helping build up a recognisable brand image and making the logo more trustworthy and seen to an audience. NME has been kept I n the same colour and font again making it a icon and next to the icon is “this week” which highlights this is done every week to create a better brand image.

A new dominant image has been added to the magazine and this time it advertises a different story which shows the audience there is not just one exclusive story in the magazine there is more to read. This time it advertises a story about a famous gig venue getting knocked down, the camera angle used in this image is a low angle which looks up in at the building giving off the impression that it is something all rock listeners respected and looked up to. It shows that it had a lot of importance to many rock bands lives and draws people into the story by making them want to read what is going to be the new famous place to play. The image also has a caption to clearly indicate to the audience where the story lies there is also underneath a brief of what the story is about which teases the audience into wanting to read the story to find out more. It also creates questions in our head like “where are gigs going to be held now” which bribes us into buying the magazine to read these important facts.

There are no thumbnail images on the contents page it is just crammed with information I think to make it more interesting it does need more thumbnails to advertise more stories and give off a positive attitude and make the audience feel as though they have their value for money, although there is plenty of information listing the bands featured and stories included people would rather see image than read through it all one buy one. The subtitles on the page allow the reader to decide and turn to the page they want to go to which is helpful to the audience as they can skip to what they want to read straight away.

The magazine also uses tease devices like the “U.K’s no 1” this attracts the audience into wanting to buy the magazine because they believe whilst the media says and they want to feel as though they have the best magazine even if it’s not the U.k’s number one we learn to believe the media which is how these devices attract us into spending our money on them. This arrow also forces the reader to turn the page and read on into the magazine.

The contents page is similar to other music magazines contents pages however some other magazines are better, this is because they use more of a range of images and less texts if this magazine did that I think it would be more successful. The list of band names looks good as there are so many however realistically not many people read them or want to because it takes to long and they would rather read articles and images. So therefore I think it creates a boring attitude to the magazine compared to the front cover it needs more attitude and rebellious to it in order for it to be more exciting. However I do think that they have kept a very good house style and they are creating a good brand image towards the magazine, and the band index can also help the audience find the band they want to read about and skip straight to the page which is a very unique thing to include in a contents page as not many include them.

The contents page does relate to the target audience they have used the right colours and have included the right band in order to interest the audience. They also have a good range of different stories and interesting titles which invites them into the magazine and can have a good positive reflection on them.

Article Page

The article page still holds the theme and house style of black, white and red. The background page is again white they do this to all the pages to keep the focus on the text clear and the images because some colour can affect the way you see an image for example pink behind Lily Allen will make the audience think she is a girly girl pop star which she is not and that will drag the theme from the genre been rock. The title is also the same font as it was in the font cover clearly indicating this is the exclusive story that hypes up the audience.

The article opens with a drop title which is a convention of all magazines they do this to emphasis the start of the story and to exaggerate the importance of the magazine.  There are words that have been highlighted in red again to emphasis the continuous if the house style, they are classed as important words as they are names “Lily Allen” in one important name as she is the star. The other name highlighted in red is the tag line which is the person that wrote and published the article.

The title is a pull from the article which shows Lily Allen’s attitude and expresses her feelings for life. The fact it is taken from the article also hypes up the audience it makes them more excitited for the story and makes them believe this is pure Lily Allen coming straight from her mouth.

The main image on the page is the same as the front cover Lily Allen dominates the whole of the left hand page leaving the right for the article, to improve this I would of added a different image to the article make people see different views of Lily Allen at different stages of her life this would relate to the story and make it more interesting for an audience.

The article page could be improved in many ways a better layout is needed and more image the text of the article needs to be bigger and more visible. The article page in my opinion is quite boring and won’t really have an effect on the audience which is what it needs. The exclusive article is meant to bring a positive attitude to the target audience and make them feel satisfied with what they have bought this article page gives off nothing it is an interesting story but it needs more to satisfy an audience. It needs thumbnail images quotes from the article splashed on the page. It gives off a bad representation compared to the front cover it has no spark to it. However the text and image does apply to it’s target audience and does have a positive effect in that way however it needs a lot to be improved which I will take into mind when producing my magazine.