Q Magazine Analysis

General

• Which company produces the magazine?

Bauer owns Q along with sister magazine Mojo and also mainstream music magazine Kerrang!

• What is the target audience according to the publisher's website?

"Open minded experience seekers, the Q audience don't define themselves by the music they listen to. Music is an important passion, but their love of music will never be detriemnt of their other passions, such as film, sport and comedy."

• How much does it cost?

£3.90

• How often is it published?

Monthly

• What is its circulation?

100,172 as of June 2009

• What data is available about it on the NRS website?

On the NRS website, it only indicates that the Publication Frequency is monthly and thats its Mnemonic is QQQ.

Front Cover Analysis

• The magazine name is Q, this represents the word 'cue' used in the music industry (particularly radio) as in the sense of cueing a record ready to play.
• The masthead is bold; the loud colour scheme immediately snatches the reader's attention. The logo is situated in the top left-hand corner of the cover, taking up approximately one-eighth of the page. It takes the form of a red square consisting of a large white serif script 'Q' inside of it. The square has no border as this would segregate it from the remains of the cover. The typeface sued for the masthead is serif; generally speaking, serif typefaces are used informally. The font colour is very important within this masthead as using white upon a bright colour makes it seem pertinent. Red has many connotations with love, danger, passion, anger and celebration. Therefore red is a colour often used to accent objects of importance. The combination of using red and white could potentially show relevance to the national flag of England, showing patriotism.
  
• This magazine has no strapline.
• The main image portrays the band 'Arctic Monkeys'. Their facial expressions are all quite sombre and serious. Each of the four members of the band are gazing directly into the camera, connecting not only with the lens, but more importantly the audience. Their body language and stance (with their hands in their pockets) shows an unspoken confidence and casual approach towards such an important photoshoot. Maybe this could reflect into some naivety and obliviousness to their fame and success. Each of the members are dressed informally, wearing jeans and plimsolls. The photo is in black & white, so their attire fits accordingly- mainly monochrome. In the hand of the lead singer is a 'Q Award', prizes given in a ceremony organised by Q. This shows their success in winning one, yet this further contrasts with their expressionless faces. Their apparel connects with the target audience- "open minded experience seekers" as they cover a broad range of styles as opposed to dressing key to one definite trend.
• There are no other images on the front cover, as they would detract from the emphasis that 'Arctic Monkeys' have.
• The cover lines promote the acts that won this year's 'Q Awards'. A list of the winners is written in a golden banner horizontally across the page. These not only promote the award ceremony in conjunction with the magazine, but also give the acts recognition and publicity amongst the readers. One coverline: '50 Best Albums of 2009' promotes the magaine as it was an independent poll. This will attract a higher readership due to a natural curiosity towards knowing who has been listed as having the best album of 2009. The coverline 'ARCTIC MONKEYS on growing up the hard way' strongly promotes the article written on them as once again it will attract potential readers as people will have be inquisitive about their childhood. Knowing that they have had a difficult upbringing provokes the natural emotion of morbid curiosity. The two remaining coverlines are written using the same font size, punctuation and alignment. This shows that they appear to be equally as important and significant as each other. 'Oasis' last days: The inside story', depending on the reader's taste in music could be classified as a major event in music history. Oasis were debatably one of the most successful bands throughout the 1990s and their breaking up could be devastating for some. 'Robbie Williams: Album Verdict' is the review of a comeback album, Q is giving their opinion and distributing it to all of their readers. This could attract custom as the public will be intrigued as to read just how successful the album could become. These coverlines are used as hooks for grasping potential buyers, therefore they must be short, to the point, and interesting.
  There are two remaining typefaces used on the front cover- one being a serif font normally in upper case, and the other being a bold heavy sans-serif font. Used in conjunction, these fonts add real excitement to the cover. The difference between them is so dramatic that it enthuses the reader.
  The colour scheme of the various typefaces consists of the colours black, red, gold and white. In my opinion gold and white dominate, however all of these colours are certainly apparent immediately. Gold exerts wealth and class whilst white symbolises truth and peace. The grouping of these two colours creates a dramatic and attention snatching effect upon the reader.
  The language used is simplistic; minimal wording to get maximum impact. Due to its informal attitude, the text "talks" to its reader on a level that they will understand. The vocabulary isn't challenging and the mode of address casual making the magazine completely unintimidating and therefore reaching out to its audience.
• I think in a sense that mainstream music magazines tend to follow a loose uniformity. So I would agree that Q has definite similarities to rival magazines, however its lack of text and focus on the featured band really make it distinctive.
  

Inside

• How many pages are there?

172

• How many pages are adverts?

44

• Categorise the products advertised into types:

Album releases,
Car manufacturers,
Men's grooming products,
DVD retailers,
DVD releases,
Alcohol- beers and spirits,
Men's watches,
Blackberry phones,
Headphones,
Royal Air Force,
Band tours and gig dates,
Clothing boutiques.

• Make a list of the features/articles topics in the magazine.

Q Awards 2009 Winners, N-Dubz, Oasis, 50 Best Albums of 2009, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Awards Gallery, Reviews, MGMT, The Temper Trap, Wayne Coyne, Jon Bon Jovi, Lily Allen, Sonic Youth, Michael Caine.

• Categorise the features/articles into types.

These features could be categorised into interviews, reviews, quizzes, award winners and album countdowns.

• How many double page spreads are there? What are they about?

There are 31 double page spreads within the magazine. The majority of these are interviews and reviews.

Potential Cover Fonts

These are my favourite fonts out of the hundreds I tested. I think that the last one down would be best for a front cover font and I like the fourth one down as a cover line and content font.

Naming my Magazine

This was potentially one of the most difficult tasks I have had to do so far in my media. I spent hours traipsing through music websites and dictionaries only to make a shortlist of very few averagely good names:

• Trance
• Fret
• Vamp
• Riff

These are the only four words that I could in vision on the front of a music magazine. I chose "Riff" as it has the most relevance to the industry and is the most recognised as being related to music out of all four of these.

riff

1  [rif]

–noun

1.	a melodic phrase, often constantly repeated, forming an accompaniment or part of an accompaniment for a soloist.

I associate this word with mainly acoustic music but this isn't how it should be perceived as it relates to all genres of music.

Due to the aggressive sound of the name caused by the -ff suffix, I feel like I could take advantage of it to excuse having quite abstract and weird photographs within it. I am happy with this name and can't wait to experiment with it.

Inspiration from i-D Magazine

Even though strictly speaking i-D Magazine isn't just a music magazine- it also covers fashion, music and youth culture- its unconventional approach on photography and its the way it manages to capture such personality on every cover really inspires me.

The magazine in my eyes is very controversial. It gives such an impression of not caring how it is perceived and this is what inspires me the most. I want to try to capture its craziness and provoke members of the public to feel curious towards it. I love how it follows no rules. Each cover has a completely different photo yet all with exactly the same enthusiasm behind it.

Past NME Covers

Looking at past NME covers I have really begun to understand the loosely enforced uniform that the magazine follows. The cover tends to be stolen by the act featured within the photo and then there is generally an unrelated headline written across the top of the page.

Circles are used to show competition details and the bands mentioned within the magazine. This is part of the magazine's house style due to its appearance over different month's covers rather than just once.

The fonts vary from cover to cover; at least two fonts are used on each cover. This adds variation and life to the magazine making it more attention snatching.

Preliminary Task

Brief

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.

Front Cover

Immediately I had an image in my mind of what I wanted the front cover of the school magazine to look like.

The first decision I made was the title of the magazine, I wanted it to be specialised so that only students of my school and their families would recognise its name. My school's name is Grammar School for Girls Wilmington and due to its confusing nature I abbreviated it to 'GSGW'.

I sat in a year 9 technology class to take potential front cover photographs. I chose technology as I wanted my magazine to focus upon the creative side as opposed to a generic

academic photograph. I chose a photo of a student smiling whilst doing work- I thought that this makes the school seem to be inviting and jolly.

My main issue with this photo is that the background was far too busy to be a front cover, therefore I had to edit it using Photoshop to blur the colour of the walls to create a consistent background which was then suitable for use as a front cover.

Contents Page

I began to make the mock-up for my contents page, focussing on the school colours of pale blue and maroon. I used the same font throughout both the front cover and the contents to make the layout of this magazine seem formal and consistent.

The photos used within the contents page are all ones that I managed to take whilst going around my school during lesson times. I tried to incorporate the different aspects of school so therefore I chose a photo of a student painting to reflect the creativity side of learning, a photo of a member of the sixth form looking proud and a photo of some younger students sitting an exam.

On Adobe Indesign I played with the fonts, colours, sizes, positioning and spacing.