Q Front Cover

Layout

The layout of the magazine is set so that all of the cover lines are around the band member in the central image so that there isn’t any cluttering. This also allows the band member to be further enhanced, connoting to the reader that he is the main attraction of the magazine. The magazine follows the route of the eye because, when you look at it you go across from the mast head, through to the central image and then lastly end up at the main cover line, ‘ARCTIC MONKEYS.’ There isn’t a lot of information or images, this is probably due to the magazine wanting to attract an audience by showing just the one large central image. The tagline is in the mundane place which portrays order and organisation into the magazine. This point is backed up by the cover lines also being in a common place. However the main cover line is at the bottom of the magazine and takes up the entire width of the magazine which will make it stand out to the audience looking at it.

Typography

The mast heads font size is very large, so it takes up  the complete top left corner of the magazine, so as you look at the magazine you will automatically notice that it is a ‘Q’ magazine. The style of it is very bold to further emphasize the size and weight of the font. Along the bottom is a cover line  which catches the eye of the reader because it has a larger font than the rest font and takes up a large amount of space. This cover line intrigues someone to read the magazine because it’s an extremely well known band! The  text below the main cover line implements an onomatopoeia to create a ‘stand out’ effect and cause the reader to jump straight to it after the masthead.

Mise-en-scene

The use of mise-en-scene on this magazine front cover is found in the clothing in the central image. The clothing isn’t what you would stereotypically see a musicians wearing, usually they would been seen wearing expensive and fashionable clothes. The band members may not be wearing those sorts of clothes because he isn’t interested in the money and fame but instead he is more focused on the music. This point is backed up by the focus on his face in the image. All the band members are each wearing a different coloured clothing, this could be done to represent their personalities to the audience.

Colour

The colours used in the front cover are all either red or white. I believe that the reason for this is so the red stands out and is enhanced by the white. The ‘Q’ background colour on the mast head is red because this follows the magazines consistent, trade mark colour.

Mode of address

The mode of address in this is front cover is quite enthusiastic together with being toned to entice you do try to read into the magazine. For example, ‘they’re back with a bang.’ This quote should have an impact on the reader to get excited about the bands latest work and read into it by looking further at the magazine. Using this quote you can also see that the language is informal because it uses an onomatopoeia. This is aimed to stand out to the audience.

Camerawork

The camerawork in this central image is a close up to connote the lead band members. The lighting and contrast in the shot has made his face dark which conveys a dark genre of music to the reader.

Language

The language on this front cover is rather informal because it doesn’t use any sentences or any formal words. All the cover lines are short and catchy to attract the attention of the audience, towards the story/article.

Summary

In conclusion, this NME front cover has a variety of factors/elements which have the same objective. That objective is to gain the attention and interest of the audience. They have succeeded in this objective because their content has information that is relevant to the targeted audience and interests them. Also their design is good because it is set so that the main story has the largest cover line and the least important story has the smallest cover line. This works well because it gains the attention from the audience to the cover line which would be more interesting to them.