NARC Evaluation 2

This front cover features only two colours – black and white. This monochrome colour scheme, combined with the religious iconography-influenced photograph, is incredibly striking. Despite being very plain, the strength of the design and photography means the cover still looks excellent. The title is, very typically, situated in the top left of the page, with the magazine’s slogan written just underneath. At the top right are the issue number, the date, and the price. These are key, necessary features on the front cover of a magazine. The language used is sparing, only listing the names of bands featured inside the magazine. This fits in with the very minimalistic colour scheme and fonts, to produce an extremely stylish cover. All text on the cover is in capitals, making the text stand out where lower case may not. The photograph is a medium shot of one of the members of the band whom the magazine’s main article centres around. They appear to be looking up, towards light, with their arms outstretched. Their pose, the lighting and even the way they are dressed indicates some sort of religious significance – maybe this person is bathing in the glory of the magazine, as they appear to be looking at the title? It is extremely striking, all the more so because of it’s ambiguity.

This contents page uses a “blocky” style, splitting the text on the page into several sections. Unusually, the page is completely devoid of all images. This lends itself to a business-like appearance. This effect is furthered in that the key colours are still black and white, though pink has now been introduced to highlight certain parts. At the top left is the label “CONTENTS”, and underneath it lists every article from the magazine. This is fairly uncommon, as usually only key articles get listed. Each article is labelled with its page number in bright pink next to it. The titles of each article are also in bold, whilst the descriptions are lower case, and this combined with the pink numbers means it is very easy to glance down the column and find an article. A letter from the editor takes up a large part of the page, introducing the reader to the magazine. To the right of this are details of the contact information for the magazine, inviting readers to participate in it’s online forums or submit letters.

This page continues the house style colour scheme introduced in the contents page. The minimalist feel continues, with the pink still used to highlight important things. On this page, it is used to highlight the introduction, and a special box-out conclusion. This double page spread features a drawing, rather than a photograph – the full left page is given over to this, a very common practice. The text is divided into three columns on the page page, which is extremely common practice. A thin line is used to divide the introductory paragraph from the rest of the text. Across the top of the page is the title – written in a clear, sans-serif font, it looks very bare and striking, continuing the minimalist style of NARC. Just underneath the title are the credits to the writers of the article, a staple feature. At the bottom left and bottom right are the magazine’s logo, the issue date and page number – again, a staple feature.