Magazine Analysis

Front CoverThis is a front cover from the October issue of Q magazine . Q has the recognisable logo of the enlarged Q in the red box. This obvious feature of the front cover allows readers to recognise the magazine and allows it to stand out from other music magazine competitors. I like the idea of having a bold, obvious title/logo for my magazine therefore I will incorporate the idea of this into my own magazine. The image used is a close up a featured artist within the magazine. The close up, along with the de saturated image shows detail of both facial features and emotions which will allow the reader to feel more involved and connected to the artist. I like the idea of using a close up of a featured artist and will keep this in mind when taking my photos for my magazine. The font used is a simplistic font but is bold to allow it to stand out from the background with them being similar colours. They have used enlarged text to draw attention to the article that includes the featured artist that is the front cover image. Red text is entwined within the rest of the text to add variation, detail and to highlight important or interesting information that would appeal to the reader. The target audience this magazine front cover would appeal to are a sophisticated, middle aged audience because of the simplistic layout and colour scheme of the magazine. It would appeal to a unisex audience as the magazine includes features that do not particularly appeal to one particular sex. The magazine includes the general conventions that all magazines include; a barcode, date and price and I will need to ensure that I also incorporate these into my front cover.

Contents PageThis is a contents page from music magazine Q. It follows the colour theme of the front cover with the text being black and white with aspects of red used to highlight important information or headings to separate sections of text. It also includes the well know logo of the magazine to show synergy throughout the magazine. I like that fact that their contents page includes information of what issue the magazine is. I will also do this when creating my contents page as I feel it will allow my magazine to appear different to other magazines as not all use this technique. The majority of the contents page is occupied by an image. In this case, this image relates to an article that will feature in the magazine. This visually appeals to the audience as too much text may put the reader off. They have incorporated a textbox onto the image to provide relevant information to the reader so they have something to link the image with. I like the way ‘Q’ have used this therefore I will also aim to incorporate a similar layout within my contents page as it will add a visual aid to my contents page and a large image will allow me to be able to break up the text so the reader is not overloaded with information.

Double Page SpreadThis a contents page from Q magazine. It is an interview with a member of U2. The double page spread continues to follow the colour theme of the rest of the magazine. The black and red text is on a white background therefore continuing the synergy throughout the magazine. They have used, like on the contents page and front cover, the red to highlight text to allow it to stand out from the rest. In this case separating the questions asked and the answers given. I think the idea of making the questions and answers clearly separated would appeal to the reader as it breaks up the vast amount of text on the two pages, therefore I will make the answers asked throughout the interview on my double page spread appear differently to the answers . The majority of the page is taken up by an image of the celebrity being interviewed. This allows the reader to be able to relate to the person who is being interviewed. There is also a sample of text extracted from the interview. This sample of text will either be humorous or entertaining for the reader to read and will contribute to drawing the reader in to read the whole interview, therefore I see this technique as something that is important for me to incorporate within my double page spread.