The document analyzes the design styles of two music magazines - NME and Mixmag. [NME targets a mainstream audience ages 16-24 with a variety of music genres represented on its messy, disorganized covers. Mixmag targets an audience interested in dance music ages 16+.] Both magazines follow design principles like using sans-serif mastheads and incentives, but differ in their use of cover images [with NME featuring a famous cover star and Mixmag using a patterned background] and number of cover lines [with NME's busy style vs Mixmag's minimal approach]. Overall the magazines have different audiences but similar design elements.

1. Masthead Splash Incentive
Target audience and need: NME has a very wide
mainstream audience as many people enjoy music
however there is a larger percentage of male readers
(65%) compared to (35%) of women who read the
magazine, it mainly targets an audience of 16-24 year
olds as (50%) read the magazine compared to (23%)
25-34 year olds. Therefore it shows the magazine
spreads a large interest to the public.
House style: The house style of NME is to have the
masthead in a very large bold sans serif font, as for all
the cover lines are also in sans serif font but smaller.
Each heading is in red highlighting them to the
Main cover Cover star Cover lines
line
audience so they stand out. The front covers are also very compact with lots of
information within the magazine The red black and white all contrast black and
white uses binary opposition as the indicate good and bad where as red suggests
danger all these combine together to show that NME is a magazine with a mixture of
all genres. It places the price/date and barcode at the bottom right of the page as it’s
visually missed by the audience no one realises the price till they pay etc.
The Guttenberg design principle: In the bottom lefts dead corner they attract the
audiences attention by placing the cover stars name in bold letters to advertise they
Liam Gallagher is the main headline for the magazine, in the top right dead corner
they place an incentive (free posters) this generates attention as the audience are
getting something for ‘free’ within the magazine.
Main image/images: There is a main image of a well know mainstream artist (Liam
Gallagher) this occurs on all NME magazines to interest the audience into buying
them. The main image is in black and white connoting the classic genre of the band
Oasis. Liam Gallagher’s images takes up the whole page this could indicate his
importance to the music industry and how successful he’s been.
Masthead: The mast head is in a very large bold sans serif font, it’s red to make it
stand out and appeal to the audience, the masthead is a very classic signature design
which is used on all NME magazines it similarly compares to the main headline
which uses the same font to attract attention. The sans serif font shows is informality
which also represents the target audience as its made up of all different followers.

2. Lead article/model credit/Cover lines: Cover lines are use all over NME front cover
to establish there messy disorganised affect as they attract a large audience who
listen to all kinds of music genres. They all use sans serif fonts too and the cover line
headings are read in comparison to the masthead however the cover line explanation
are in white or black contrasting each heading.
Masthead Tag-line
Target audience and need: Mixmag targets an
audience of ages 16+ specifically people who
listen to dance music. It also targets many
dance artists as there isn’t many stories within
the Mixmag it is based on DJ careers and short
interviews etc.
House style: It uses a tag-line to emphasise
what the magazine is about ‚The world biggest
dance music and clubbing magazine.‛ The
gold and black colours represent the black as in
the bad of things and gold the good of things
like money/riches.
Main
Incentive Cover lines Barcode
cover line
The Guttenberg design principle: In the primary optical area it has the masthead
and the splash, as the eyes reach the terminal areas the audience will see the cover
lines on the main articles within the magazine, in the top right dead corner there’s a
tag-line to describe the magazine, and in the bottom left dead corner there is a small
font incentive to attract attention as the audience will want to know what it says.
Main image/images: The gold colours in the background are shaped as silhouettes
of people dancing this indicate the genre of Mixmag directly to the audience. As
there is no main image they use a splash within the centre of the page to direct
attention it also asks a question ‚Dance winner of all time?‛ which will make the
audience intrigued to find out who’s won especially regular readers of Mixmag.

3. Masthead: The masthead is large and bold using a sans serif font which stretches
across the top of the front cover; it stands out as its coloured white contrasting with
the black and gold within the background. The masthead is also a compound noun,
for example (mix) could represent the use of mixers on a DJ deck or mixtures of
sounds, and (mag) is a shorter version of magazine.
Lead article/model credit/Cover lines: The cover lines are very short and simple on
the front cover there also isn’t many covering the page this is because the genre of
magazine is only on dance therefore the target audience now what will be inside so
there is no need for it to be busy or look messy, it also makes the magazine more
formal looking which indicates the purpose of it is more sophisticated which links in
with it targeting more dance artists to help them with their future careers. The cover
line headings are all in gold where as the coverline description is white these colours
contrast each other.
Comparison: In comparison NME and Mixmag have rather different target
audiences as mixmag is more specific to the genre of music it contains whereas
NMEs audience is very mainstream as it contains many different genres, however
similarly both NME and Mixmag use a informal masthead as there both sans serif
and very bold this advertises the magazine professionally as its noticeable from the
boldness and the choice of colours red/white. Both magazines follow the Guttenberg
design principle they add incentives and splashes in dead corners to attract attention
therefore they both use the rule of thirds to present their magazine covers. A
difference between both magazines is the use of a main image NME uses a famous
cover star whereas Mixmag uses a patterned background, this may be because
mixmag only focuses on dance and some artists will not be famous enough to be
recognised by the audience whereas NME have a large number of artists to use.
There is also a difference in the use of cover lines, as NME have many on the front
cover which makes the magazine seem busy which represents the use of all different
genres whereas Mixmag only has a few in the terminal area to attract attention.