NME Contents Page Analysis

Blog 11

Hello Everyone,

            As you know I analysed 5 front covers of official music magazines, well I am going to be doing the same but for contents pages. Over the next few days I am going to analyse 5 contents pages; 2 NME’s 2 Q’s and a MOJO.

Both NME contents pages are very similar due to their house style. NME have chosen to create a neat ‘blocky look’  this look entails squares 1 larger than the others – often a main article also each square/blurb is sectioned off with a neat thin black line, this line is affective as it keeps the articles separate but also makes the page look neat and in organised sections. The use of a quote and a brief sentence explaining the article for each artist underneath their picture gives the audience a sneak peek at what the article is going to entail. The title of the NME contents pages isn’t just “contents” in bold writing it’s more quirky than that. They have thought about their target audience or indie fans that pride themselves on being ‘individual’ and ‘quirky’ and that is exactly what they have done for their contents page. NME’s contents pages always look like this, keeping it consistent makes it recognisable, if you hadn’t seen the front cover just by looking at the contents page if you were a regular reader you would recognise it was a NME contents page instantly. The only difference between the 2 NME’s I have looked at is one issue has black numbers and the other has red. I’m not sure why they have done this but I prefer the black numbers as they link with the colour of the title of the current page rather than NME logo.

The conventions from the NME style contents page I would consider using would defiantly be the ‘blocky look’ it’s neat and clear but also nothing is seen as more important than another, yes the middle image is slightly larger than the rest but not by a lot and that evens it out and makes it more appealing to the eye. Also I like the large bold page numbers, they stand out against the images and even off the page, even without reading the blurb someone might see the image of Florence and the Machine for example see the large 45 and immediately turn to that page and read about it.The conventions I wouldn't consider using would be the large subscription advert, it doesn't really fit the page, the bright red of the advert links the red logo but I just don’t like it. I would include an advert but not as large and bright.