NME MAGAZINE 1985 To the left is an image of NME’s front cover issue 8th April 1985. This issue was produced 30 years after the magazines first release yet before I compared it to a present day issue I assumed this was one of the earliest issues. The quality of the printing obviously isn’t of today’s standards and the masthead is very basic. It lacks depth and looks fairly flat in the top left corner. However, there is a money off coupon in the top left corner that would have attracted customers because as the country was only just beginning to regain itself again after the war, spending money on music was not a priority to most people. A further strength to this cover is that the main anchorage font ‘NIRVANA’ is the same colour as the masthead therefore creates a house style immediately. The image here works to establish the genre as people of the time would have known that Kurt Cobain, the main figure of NIRVANA was of the American rock sound therefore we know that the genre of NME is rock. After doing further research I found that the image was taken by French photographer Renaud Montfourny which shows that the magazine had established itself by the 1980’s as they were able to use a foreign photographer which would have been an expensive affair.

NME MAGAZINE 2011 Here is an NME Issue from 2011 – I am going to compare it to the 1985 one on the previous slide. The first convention that stands out to me is that the NME masthead is still the colour red and the biggest anchorage text is also the same colour. Red is clearly a strong colour towards NME and may convey their strong love towards music. NME clearly feel it important to keep a constant colour running through all issues to help advertise the magazine as readers will become knowledgeable to the idea that NME is red. A second thing I noticed when comparing was that NME no longer advertise a free coupon/gift etc. This shows that as the years have gone on, NME has further established itself so much that it no longer needs to give away free gits to lure in the audience. This shows how the magazine has become more sophisticated and classy. The final convention I want to mention is the front cover photography and how it is similar to the 1980’s issue in the sense that both images are in the centre of the page and the artist holds direct eye contact to the reader. The image on this issue however is clearer but I put that down to the fact that technology has developed incredibly since the 80’s therefore can produce clearer more intimate images.