Front Page Analysis - NME and Q comparison

The two music magazines "Q" and "NME" use very unique mastheads.
The colours red and white are both used for the masthead. Red suggests their music is strong and dynamic. NME is a rock magazine and rock music is also a strong loud genre. The white around the NME logo promotes professionalism. It also enhances the boldness of the font. The font itself is big and chunky. It suggests that this kind of genre (rock) of music is masculine and that this type of magazine is more targeted for a male audience.
You can compare this to "Q's" masthead, It also uses the colours red and white but the word itself is coloured in white and the block behind is in red. I believe it makes the magazine stand out more. The type of typography is more stylish like a signature suggesting "Q" is more of a mature music magazine and a lot more sophisticated.

The main cover line for "NME" is supposed to represent the main image showing the best band this week/month and this weeks/month the main cover line band for "NME" is "The View" written in huge typography and is in black and white which is probably the traditional colour scheme for rock music since the rock genre can be quite heavy and dark and black can be connoted in the same sort of way. It's big and chunky making it eye-catching and attracting fans of this certain band.
Comparing it to the "Q" main cover - 'The Song Writers' already you can see a major difference from the "NME" main cover line. 'The Song Writers' is placed on the left hand side of the magazine and is much smaller than 'The View'. This may suggest it is more sophisticated because it doesn't need to be big to catch audience attention and the added fact the colour of the main cover line is in gold connoting wealth, luxury or even experience suggesting that "Q" magazine are experienced in targetting their audience and not using over-the-top methods like "NME".
You could also mention the font style of "Q's" main cover line is fairly basic implying that "Q" is sophisticated because it isn't using crazy font styles because it wants to maintain it's mature audience.

The cell lines are there to allow the consumer to know what sort of bands the magazine is going to interview. "NME" shows it's cell lines as very loud very colourful, lots of pictures, big typography and lots of tie-ins. These are all put on the cover on purpose because these are the sort of features that attract a young audience who "NME's" main target audience. You also are able to identify the colour scheme from the cell lines (Red, Yellow, Black, White) simple, eye-catching colours nothing to complicated, again used to target a young audience because of the fact it's not too complicated, young people like easy things, fast.
"Q's" cell lines are a little different. There are no pictures and the font is a lot smaller in comparison. The artists are in plain, simple list with occasionally popular artist highlighted in gold because they're probably popular in the charts right now and highlighted them would instantly catch anyone’s attention. All of this again shows sophistication, they don't need pictures to attract their audience because their target audience is a lot more mature than that. "Q" even includes a superlative to make their magazine seem like they are the only magazine with these artists giving even greater reason for a consumer to want to buy their magazine.

The main image is huge compared to the cell lines to draw attention to the reader because the images are looking at the camera trying to directly address the reader. It is clear “Q” magazine is trying to appeal to older audiences because of the main images they used are of adults as opposed to “NME” using younger artists for their main image suggesting NME is targeting a younger audience. What “Q” have decide to make their main images wear is very important; it very formal dress with a tie and a shirt and a dress. This is the stereotypical dress style of mature adults therefore “Q” is strengthening its representation. “NME” on the other hand have made their main images wearing casual clothing with things like jeans jackets and having long hair and wearing black. This is stereotypical of what young audiences of teenagers wear. Having long hair and wearing black is stereotypical of your conventional rebel child. Young audiences can also relate this band because your teen years is when you start to fully appreciate music and start playing the guitar or whatever and young audiences may aspire to be like the View.