
The title of the magazine is NME which is a short abbreviation for 'New Musical Express'. The title originally was New Musical Express in the early years when it was a music newspaper as a suppose to magazine but in 1978 the title was changed to the currant abbreviated title and soon after this in the early 1980's it changed from newsprint and into a music magazine. The title was abbreviated for several reasons, one key reason is that the old title was simply too long especially for the magazine format which they were planning to move towards when they made the change. The second reason is that the abbreviation comes across more urbanized and has a younger feel to it which links heavily to their urban, young target audience.
The title logo has white writing with a red box surrounding it. The font is a very basic style but is large and bold and sticks out on the front page which is obviously what is required for a title on a front cover. The red box also separates the title from the rest of the front cover images and writing in order to ensure to the reader what the title is and to make sure that it does not get taken over by all of the other parts of the cover.
There is not so much of a strap line but there are four names of singers that are in the same font colour and style as the title that are joined on to the title, these names are PJ Harvey, Lars Ulrich, Haim and Toy and these are four artists who appear throughout this weeks issue.
The cover lines promote the main topic of this issue which is young British singer's and is illustrated by the large bold main cover line. Also there are small cover lines attached to each picture of the artists just simply saying who the image is representing.
I like the idea of the fire extinguishers because it gives off the idea that all of these artists are young and enjoying themselves and also the idea that the front cover folds out is rather different and imaginative and just adds to the readers excitement, it also allows the magazine to target more things for example more artists pictures.
The inside
There is 66 pages and 15 of these pages are adverts. There are several different types of adverts in this magazine, there health care products for men e.g. male electronic razors, food and rink items e.g. Jack Daniels whiskey and then there are concert adverts promoting upcoming tours and concerts.
List of articles and topics: sounding off column, 20 essential new tracks, festival drugs, the week, Lars Ulrich sound track of my life , radar, reviews corner , NME guide, young Britannia, state of Flux, from the vaults and lastly this week in 1991.
I would put these in to several different categories, one would be information and weekly catching up, artists stories, investigations, past music looking back at music from different generations and finally the main story which is young Britannia which has the most coverage.
There are 17 double page spreads and they consists of reviews, music updates, festival drugs, the weekly catch up and the young Britania topic has three double page spreads yet again confirming that it has been given the most coverage because it is most important main part of this week's issue.
There are several advertorials, there is one that is advertising reasons to subscribe to NME which is telling you good information about the magazine and what is in this could be seen as an advert for the magazine but it is unlikely as it is in the magazine itself which would make it rather strange to advertise for a magazine inside a magazine. There are also sections that are talking about upcoming tours for artists and it says reviews and how good/bad they are but because prices and dates are on there this could also be seen as an advert for these artists tours.
The house style is rather clear throughout, the background colour throughout is predominantly white and the writing is in a rather mundane black font. All titles of pieces stick out by being put in a very colourful font for example pink or blue which really stick out in contrast with the black font for the actual article itself, this house style is used consistently throughout the magazine apart from when it comes to the main topic of the issue which yet again links to the idea of making the Young Britannia article stand out because it is the main topic of this issue and so it is highlighted by the change in style from the house style. The house style relates to the target audience because the font is very basic and to the point and not too fancy which would appeal to the young target audience because that is what they would look for in a magazine, another thing which appeals to this area of people is the several bright colours and constant images throughout the magazine because it makes the magazine far more exciting to read and avoids the magazine becoming too text heavy.
