Research & Planning: NME Music Cover Analysis

Music Magazine Cover © NME, 2012

This is the first music magazine that I will analyse for a mixture of it's representation of it's audience, the magazine's genre, layout, shot type and typographical features.

The main shot type used is a close up, of John Lennon's face. The image is in black and white, which works nicely with the choice of a faded yellow and white typography that is displayed over the image. From looking at this cover, I can assume that the target audience of this magazine is probably people aged 35+, this is because John Lennon is an 'old' artist, which would appeal to an older demographic. As for representation of it's audience, this magazine doesn't really use any techniques to stereotype it's target audience. The main shot appeals to many as John Lennon himself is an iconic figure that many idolise.

Using this cover as a guide, I would say that the genre of 'NME' is Pop rock. This specific issue looks like a special edition, celebrating 60 years of NME magazine. Perhaps this is why they have chosen to focus on an 'older' artist.

The layout of the magazine cover is pretty typical of a music magazine, except there is only one cover line. The page has three main elements; a cover shot (image of John Lennon), cover lines (in this case "Lennon, The ultimate icon of NME's lifetime" and a publication line, "NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS". This edition also includes a pullout, which is advertised at the top of the cover.

The typography used on the cover is very clean and appealing. Serif fonts are used to compliment the sans serif typefaces. For example, "60" is written using a serif font, and the text that is directly beneath and above it is a sans-serif. This makes the text stand out to the reader. The cover follows the three-colour-rule, in this case it is black, white and a faded-yellow.