Indie Rock

Codes and Conventions

Indie Rock magazines are magazines aimed at an audience aged mostly 15-18.

The magazine NME for example is targeted at males .

Indie Front Cover Conventions

The Masthead is in bold and bright colours, usually red, orange, black or white.

The style of the font of the masthead is in bold displaySome names of indie magazines are NME, INDIE and

FaderThe setting of the front cover is usual in an outdoor,

natural setting. EG, Fader.The Colours stay natural with occasional pops of

colours orange or red. They keep to them same, basic colour scheme: Red,

Yellow, Black and White. But mostly use the colour red.

The Puff on the front cover usually contains information about new albums or new gigs

The puffs come in bright colours like red, orange and yellow.

Popular indie rock bands and artists are Jake Bugg, Paramore, Arctic Monkeys and The Killers.

The cover lines on magazines are usually a list of bands names that will appear inside the magazine. This was the readers know already that they will like what is inside if an artist or band they like is listed.

On the front cover buss words such as “Free” and “Gig” will encourage the target audience to buy it making them think something special is revealed inside the mag.

The main image is usually placed on the right hand side of the front cover, it starts to blend over the mast-head, this happens on most of NME front covers. They are also placed on a white background, making the image stand out more.

Their facial expressions tend to be minimal, keeping them plain and quite serious at times. We rarely seems them smiling in their indie rock videos either because we don’t associate this with their genre of music.

The bands instruments are very important props as all indie rock bands use drums and guitars. These tend to feature more on the contents page and double page spread than the front cover.