The NME
Like
most magazines, the NME contains
feature articles that run for one week only (e.g. an interview) and regulars
(e.g. reviews). They use the same template and format each week to maintain
consistency.
The
main image on the NME contents page
is a photo of Mick Jagger, which relates to the feature article in the
magazine. Below that, is a quote from that article. The idea of that is to draw
the reader into that article by creating an element of suspense to make them
want to read the article. Below the quote is a short description of the
article. It says “One of the reasons why Performance
is the greatest Rock N Roll film – 40 years after its release”. The
decision by the NME to run an article
on Mick Jagger is an interesting one because their typical target audience
probably might not be interested in reading about Mick Jagger.
Another
feature article that it promotes on its contents page is an article about
Arcade Fire. Below the image of a man playing a guitar, is the quote from the
article “Next Month’s mortgage payment has a question mark over it”. This draws
in the reader’s attention because it makes them wonder who it is who is in
financial trouble and whether it will be one of their favourite bands. Below
the quote, there is a bit more detail about the article: “Arcade Fire - The
biggest poor band in the world”. The NME are
trying to use shock tactics to make you read the article. Normally you would
expect a successful band to be rich. However, this is clearly not the case and the
NME are trying to point that out.
The
NME lists its regulars on the
contents page too but in a much smaller way than they feature their feature
articles. This is probably because the feature articles are considered the
thing that makes someone buy a magazine. For the regulars, the NME does not give a photo, quote from
the article or description of the article. Instead, they just list the regular
features, which are on the whole quite self-explanatory.
The
NME have made good use of different
formatting. The fonts for a quote are in italics and the descriptions of the
articles are in bold. They have also used a different font for the page title.
Q Magazine
Unlike
the NME, Q Magazine places greater emphasis on its regular articles, as
well as its feature articles.
The
biggest article on the contents page shows a man in a suit with a page number
for that feature article but without a quote from the article or description of
the article. Instead, as well as the image, they show you a small image of the
full double page spread. This is unusual for magazines because they normally
use text as well as photos to draw the reader in.
Also
on Q Magazine’s contents page is a
photo of the front cover. This is another convention that is used by a lot of
magazines, even though the NME by
contrast does not do this.
On
regular that Q Magazine heavily
features on its contents page is ‘The Q Review’. The title of this regular is
catchy because ‘Q’ sounds like the ‘iew’ sound of ‘review’; it has a nice
rhythm to it. They also make good use
of interesting language here. For example, “Two reasons to gaze across the
Atlanticas with envy”. Words such as ‘gaze’ and ‘envy’ hint that Q Magazine considers their target
audience to be well educated. This is a good example of interesting language that
music magazines use to make the article more fun to read and to grab the
reader’s attention more.
On the right side of the contents pages, under the
headline of ‘regulars’, there is a list of regular features in the magazine
with details about what this month’s regulars are about. For example Q50 which
has the description, “This month’s essential tunes”. They have used the word
‘tunes’ to make the magazine more informal and reflect the way that people talk
in real life.
