Codes and conventions of a Magazine Front Cover

Codes and conventions of a Magazine Front Cover

Masthead (Logo): The Masthead which is called NME represents the whole magazine. It is big, bold and uses capital letters which makes it stand out and it’s the first thing you would recognise as it looks unique from other magazines. The masthead is also the logo which is good for advertising and more.

Dateline: The dateline is usually printed near by the price of the magazine so that we no for sure that the magazine is updated with the correct information and price.

Main Image: There is a single Image of the famous singer Rihanna also with an unreal bird which is sitting on her shoulder. The image is clear as we can see her face all the way down to her waist and the singer is also looking directly at the camera giving eye-contact.

Cover- lines:   The NME magazine uses many different cover-lines using the main colours it has chosen for the magazine front cover. The cover-lines are distributed at the corners of the magazine so it doesn’t interfere with the main image to much. One of the cover-lines ‘world’ are the same colour as there backgrounds and this should be changed as it clashes the colours together and takes time to figure out what the word is.

Main Cover-line:  The main cover- line ‘Rihanna’ stands out the most because it looks large on the magazine and takes up a lot of space, it is placed in the middle so we know what the cover-line represents which is the image and this promotes the singer. The cover-line works well with this magazine as it doesn’t clash into other similar colours but stands out and is also clear to read.

Left Third: The left third of the magazine is important because when it is shown on stands in a shop the other half of the magazine may be covered and so the masthead and the cover lines must be clear to stand out when trying to sell with much more other competitors of different magazines in the way.

Bar code: The bar code is placed at the bottom right hand corner which is at a good standard.

Selling line:  The selling line is not that short or long  and says that it is a new NME which would make the audience want to buy the special edition of the magazine because it is nothing compared to the old version as it says ‘ Introducing the new NME 4 of 10  special edition covers’.

Website link: The NME magazine doesn’t state the website on the front cover.