Music Magazine conventions

Front cover NME

This cover is a good example of one of the most unique convention of the NME magazine; it’s colour scheme. The masthead is always in the top left hand corner to create instant recognition with the audience. The masthead is always in the same bold font with the red, black and white colour scheme. The only time this would change is if it would be a special event, for instance Christmas.   

The front cover does generally copy the colour scheme of the masthead with the white background, the red and black text. Since frequent readers of the NME will know that the masthead will always be there, the artists do sometimes cover up parts of the masthead, such as the one on the right.

The magazine also uses colour to make important things on the page stand out. In the above example yellow is used such as ‘Jack White’s shock new album’ and ‘studio news’.

The artists that the NME use stick to the theme that NME’s content is based on indie, general guitar-playing artists. Customers will then always associate NME with guitar playing artists and so it will create a mindset where customers will buy the NME because its content will solely be on indie rock music.

The artists that NME uses are al generally quite young, I would say in between the pages of twenty and mid thirties, which reflects the age of the target audience that the NME appeals to. I would say that the target audience is generally male due to the large bold font, the dark colours and the fact that a majority of the issues have male artists on them.

The people on the cover are not generally considered to be incredibly attractive, unlike for instance a modelling magazine where that is an expectation.

Female front cover

Since that the target audience is generally male having a female artist would seem to go against the conventions of the NME. However in this example everything apart from the artist is still the same; the colour scheme, position of the masthead, font etc, so most of the conventions are still the same.Lily Allen is presented as an ‘indie’ artist due to the red flannel shirt, which is seen as an indie stereotype. The red shirt also helps fit in with the house style of the NME magazine (black, white, red and yellow).

She’s also presented in quite a male way, i.e. with the short and the shirt.

So in a way, this example is still sticking to all the NME conventions whilst being able to get away with presenting a female artist on the front cover.

Contents page

NME’s content page differentiates from the front cover quite a lot. The house style changes from red, white, black and yellow to black, white and blue. The font is a lot more varied; the example has italic, bold and thin font, suggesting that NME is trying to appeal to a wider audience.

There’s no mast head, however most of the issues always have the strap line ‘Inside this week’ it suggests a sense of familiarity with the reader letting them know that there is new, content every single week.

The main feature of the issue is placed in the middle to draw immediate attention and all the other stories are placed around it.

Double page spread

List of conventions of the double page spread:

v NME’s double page spread is mainly taken up by a large, dominating picture and title.

v There isn’t a lot of colour in the article, mainly black and white.

v The colour mainly comes from the artist’s clothes and the Reading and Leeds festival.

v The picture takes up one half of the page and the title and article take up the rest.

v The title’s font has a much more interesting font, with the mixture of the bold and the curly fonts.

v Even the colour of the text in the article doesn’t vary much from the rest of the article

v The conventions mentioned earlier still apply to this example, the fact that’s a young, male band, they’re wearing quite dark colours to contrast with the white font

v The page has some elements of the house style i.e. black and white theme colour and the red, yellow and black festival logos in the corner