5X Front Cover Analysis

1. NME Vampire Weekend
   
   The first thing that is noticeable about this front cover is the title in middle of the page. It’s huge and space consuming. Every other band that’s mentioned is in a more inferior position with a more inferior font-size. It will immediately relate to any fans of Vampire Weekend immediately. The band members even fill most of the page. This suggests that the band themselves are the most important implement of this months issue. It doesn’t matter what the magazine is, the important thing is that they have information about Vampire Weekend. This isn’t very good to draw in people other than fans though.

The colour scheme of the photo and band members wearing sunglasses is very loud, bright and happy. This helps the magazine stand out because it is a much “happier”, pleasant sort of colour scheme, which acts on the brain, determining that the magazine and articles are happy. It’s also good because bright colours draw in younger minds.

They are pulling jokey faces to make the front cover seem even more light-hearted and friendly. It gives the band a friendly and likable persona.

All of the fonts are serif in this front cover, giving it a more trendy and youthful look about it. This will additionally draw in people that are young as well as Vampire Weekend fans.

2. NME 10 Year Anniversary Edition

Unlike any conventional cover the title is placed in the top left cover of the cover, which is known be NME’s trademark.
As the name has been abbreviated as it is only three letters, if it was placed in the middle the space around it would look too bare. So by placing it in a corner it still stands out, yet has that sense of belonging.
Contrasting with the monochrome colour scheme, they have still kept the title in red, but have incorporated bits of the colour scheme by outlining it in white, which subtly ties it all in together.
The font is also in a serif font which keeps the magazine youthful as it looks more laid back and carefree, which the readers will be looking for as a magazine is for entertainment purposes.
As it is a special issue, celebrating 10 years of NME as a magazine, the main image isn’t a usual NME photo shoot like image, but a montage of inspirational artists and bands, combined to make one image. This has then been changed to black and white and enhanced, to tie it all in together.
Which I think works well, as they have selected the most influential artists of the decade and created a distinctive, edgy front cover image.

Overall all the features on the front cover is kept minimal and there is a sense of order and structure.
The colour scheme is mainly monochrome with the occasional splash of red, used in some fonts.
The red brings a sense of British-ness to the magazine and as it is a special issue, all the images are in black and white as it is a celebration of music and if all the individual images were in separate colours, some may come across as more superior than others.
The layout of the cover is also successful as from the masthead your eye line follows along to the right and down to the middle where the cover lines are, creating a continuous focal point.

3. Kerrang HIM

Black and white are the main colours used, I personally do not find them attractive but those are colours their readers like and enjoy. It adds to a gothic/rock sort of overtone that makes the image in the middle and the magazines on a whole seem dark. Every part of the magazine front cover is written in Serif font apart from the HIM part. They seem to have personalised the cover to match their logo of gothic font and give off a further implication of darkness and Goth-like traits. This suits the magazine quite well considering the genre.

The Hammer Guns N Roses Front Cover

It’s very cluttered and packed with things everywhere. It looks disorganised and crazy which suits the music genre. Layout of Magazine It has a skyline, with a well-known bands featured in it. Also has an amp on the front cover which shows what kind of music is it, it’s to be played loud so you’d need an amp. The third left has only got a few of the most important things in it because they will have an established fan base who will pick it up as soon as they see the name. Fonts and typography The ‘Metal Hammer’ title is almost smashed which is fitting with the music genre. There’s lots of reds and blacks which suit the feel of the music in the magazine

There is more writing than photos on this front cover, not very image dominant. This makes it obvious that this magazine adopts quite a blocky style. One of the photos overlaps the title which makes it seem like he’s interrupting and this and his pose shows his attitude and gives an idea of the music he makes. The photos are quite dark, two are almost just black and white which again is typical of this music genre. This magazine has a different colour scheme to the NME as there are a lot of black and dark colours, this is to meet the expectations of the reader. This magazine is aimed at the original fans of metal and rock music, it has an older demographic. This magazines unique selling point is “the horror.” It is different, dark and almost scary and it’s also one of the original magazines for metal music.

5. Rolling Stone Britney Front Cover

This main feature is an image of Britney is very natural and she looks really pretty and she also looks very happy, this makes a magazine really interesting when there is a celebrity that looks natural and the image doesn’t seem like its been over edited. She isn’t wearing brightly coloured clothes so they haven’t made it overly stand out. They have used neutral colours for the colour scheme and this magazine comes across as a contempory magazine and it is very different from the NME covers I analysed. Her position is also natural and it seems as if she’s laughing at something. This magazines house style is based around the fact it’s a American music, politics and popular culture magazine. This magazine deals with mainly music and solo artists or bands but it also includes popular issues arising around the time this magazine gets published and it also deals with a lot of film stars. The title is two words written in full compared to NME which are the initials of the actually name. The font of this title is very simple and again in neutral colours, they’ve gone for a bold title, which stands out on the background behind it. The style and font changes on the words Rolling Stone as they tend to make the title fit with the colour schemes on the features for that magazine. This magazine also has no line above it with more info unlike NME which says that the magazine people would rather make there own decisions about this magazine. Rolling stone magazine I have also noticed have mixed certain issues which will target all audiences not just people who want to know about music an example is the title ‘A Sci-Fi Beyonce’ this isn’t a usual title you would see about Beyonce as she is an R’n’B superstar. This magazines target readership is aiming at all different types of people and I think that they are wanting to educated people about the music business and stars etc but I also think that it’s a way of keeping people up to date with more serious issue like political press etc and other popular issues within the country of America. This magazine hasn’t used a direct pull quote but they have added almost an answer to something, as if someone as asked something about Britney and so they answered yes she can! Then there’s Britney Returns underneath and this simple line is the selling line for the main feature in it’s self, because people are going to want to read about Britney’s return as before she had a bad reputation. All the features of this magazine are set out on the left third of the magazine because this magazine isn’t magazine you would find in small corner newsagents as it isn’t a usual gossip mag etc and so everything being on the left third will make the magazine get noticed when stacked on a shelf in a large book/magazine shop because magazines are stacked across not down. Also it’s eye catching that they have added THE HOT ISSUE highlighted in red and written in capitols as if this is a must read issue especially when it’s based around Britney and the popular Twilight film. Another thing is that I really like how they’ve shown the shadow behind Britney making this photo even more realistic.