ANALYSIS OF EXISTING MAGAZINES

This is the cover of NME. The Cover appears crowded, with one main picture surrounded by text and other secondary pictures. This gives connotations related to the busy, interesting life the target audience is likely to have. The fonts appear to be quite modern in order to relate to a young, modern audience. The band are posing for the cover and truing to look interesting and different in order to draw peoples attention to the magazine. The title of 'NME' is bold red with a black outline which is always used, this is to give readers a way of recognising the brand. The main sell stands out like a headline with the colour yellow contrasting with the background colours while other stories on the cover are in a smaller font. The extra pictures used are quite small and relating to the main sells. There is a banner along the top which is also in yellow which reads: 'GLASTO *the verve *Kings of Leon *Jay-Z

Fans react to shock 2008 headliners' By using the word 'Glasto' rather than Glastonbury the magazine assumes that the reader will understand and the target audience find it may be something they will understand and like. NME doesnt follow the common conventions of magazine design but does generally follow the rule of thirds.


This is the cover of Q. Unlike NME, it uses only one picture on the front and there are fewer storys. This means that more attention is paid to the picture of Lily Allen and it draws the target audience in. The main flash is written accorss the center in very large lettering, with her name in black and white following the colour of her clothes and surroundings. This magazine design is a lot more conventional. The main sells are all written in the top right corner which would be the next place people would look, as people read left to right. Like NME, the title 'Q' uses the colour red to stand out. It has a larger impact on this magazine as there are less colours used. 'Q' is using the logo as a way for its audience to associate with the brand. Q is published less often than NME, and this comes accross in the design as it would be more expensive and so looks slightly better quality whereas NME looks to be aimed at a younger audience who wouldnt have as much money. There is a banner along the bottom which lists more things that will be in the magazine. Again, this banner makes use of black and white so relates to Lily Allen's clothing and surroundings. The picture only uses one person but has two panthers to emphasise two things said about her: "sexy beast" and "her wicked, wicked ways..." by ending this in '...' it gives the impression that it continues inside making someone want to read it.

The Q contents page also uses the logo to reinforce the brand, using it in the top left corner to ensure its the first thing you see and then again at the bottom. The contents page uses two pictures, one being alot larger than the other to make people interested to the article it relates to. This page follows the conventions set by the cover in the way thet it uses black and white with red. This helps the magazine to have an identity. The contents has a section labeled 'every month' which would be used to create familuarity to the readers who buy the magazine reguarly. There is also another section called 'Q Review' which seems to be quite seperate from the rest of the contents page.

This is a double page spread taken from NME.
About half of it is taken up by a picture, then there are serveral other pictures placed on the other side. The headline of 'NME loves the teenagers' is placed in the center which draws the attention to the top of the page. the colour of blue is used quite a lot throughout this page, which is following in some conventions set by the cover. The sidebar is relating to a serperate feature titled 'everyone's talking about...' this would be to fill more space without making it look too crammed in. The actual article about The Teenagers is quite small and by using an insert picture and a large quote it helps to give the audience something to connect the text to.