NME Front cover

Colour scheme
As its a christmas special Nme have used a grey background for simon cowells studio shot. Grey is assosiated with christmas as it gets dark early and the winter sky has a grey tone. With sparkles all over the front cover this represents the snow and the connotation of a white christmas. Simon Cowell is dressed in black which adds to the darkness of him and makes the statement 'the grinch speaks' more apparent. The mastead (NME) is in red which represented with christmas. As the background is grey this makes the picture stand out more and draws all the attention to Simon Cowell.
Photography
NME have used the fact that Simon Cowell is known to be a harsh, bossy and scary man with his facial expression. Buy doing this it connotes to the reader that he is not a nice man. This is also the case with him looking into the camera, It has the effect like he is looking into the eyes of the reader.
Font
All the fonts are in the colour of typical Christmas colours. The masthead NME has a snowy effect on top of it. This is a good way of getting out the fact that it is a Christmas special. 'The Grinch speaks' is in capital letters to make it stand out.
Writing style
'The Grinch speaks' is pointing out the fact that simon cowell is not a very popular man and has been known to have a lot of hatred in and out of the media business. 'NME goes head to head with Simon Cowell gives the impression to the reader that the interview asks some tricky questions and that it is worth reading for the confrontation between NME magazine and Simon. The sell line 'Massive Christmas double special' is in capitals to show the importance of this statement. Its like they want to reader to buy the magazine and believe that NME are being in the Christmas spirit with the double issue.

Text/picture ratio
The large picture of Simon Cowell takes up most of the cover. Simon Cowell is well known for having his artists get the top spot in the Christmas charts. In the bottom left corner of the cover is where NME have put 6 pictures of the free posters inside the issue. This attracts the audience who have posters on there bedroom walls.