Product research for music magazine

1. House style- fonts/colours/layout
The colours are quite bold which makes the headings stand out as they are in red.
The colour scheme of this contents page would have been the same as the font
cover of the magazine. Q seems to carry on the colour scheme onto the contents
page where in this case they have used three colours: Red, White and black. These
colours are very common against indie/rock contents page I’ve previously
researched. This may be because the colour red represents anger, death and passion
as rock music is often played in this manner which could be sterotyped as being
typical indie/rock genre. Keeping the same colours carries on a repetitive pattern.
The layout is quite structured making it look quite simplistic which is a common thing
for indie/rock magazines, this makes it easier for older audiences wanting to read the
magazine to find the right article. All of the models are men which shows that the
magazine has a under-representation of women. This could be in order to attract a
female gaze for the magazine or a lack of women in the indie/rock music industry.
Target audience and need
The target audience for this magazine would be either indie fans
or young adults, as the indie genre such as courteeners seems to
be more popular for older teenagers because for one their
fashion sense as it is quite dark and simplistic. They could also be
seen as role models for a younger demographic, as they are very
successful and feature in well-known magazine such as ‘Q
Magazine’. The lead singer, Liam James Fray, is wearing dark
sunglasses andis standing withhis hands inhis pockets. This
represents his lifestyle as being quite laid back andun-caring
about what people think about what the is wearing, which could
mirror the lifestyle of the magazine’s readers.
Imagery-Photographs
One of the main features to a contents page
is the largeimage. These are used to draw
the reader’s attention. Underneath the
image it has a brief description of what they
are representing. Fans would easily
recognisethe image and would grab their
attention. A contents paged is used to make
it easier for readers to find the page they are
lookingfor, for example after seeing the
image of the band they can quickly look at
the page number and view the article.
The Guttenbergdesignprinciple
In the optical areathere are the titleas this is the
area that you are drawn to straight awayandbythe
maintitle beinginthis area it is clear what page you
are on without struggling to findit. The main
features are alsointhis area to show where
everything is inthe magazine andalso a small
amount of information about eacharticle. The most
useful and most important informationis in this
area. In the terminal area there is a review and
informationabout NickCave. In the strongfellow
area there is a large image of the Courteeners which
wouldattract fans to the articles andthis is also
where the date is to show how recentlythe
magazine waspublished this is important on the
magazine because inthe music industry gossipcan
change quicklysuchas bands canbreakup and
music changes quickly. In the weakfellow area
there is the general knowledge to give youextra
informationabout what the magazine contains.
DesignBalance
The design ofthis contents pageis simpleand is not
cluttered upwith lots ofimages andfeatures which
makes theones thatarethere standout. The page
only features oneimage which may represent the
main articleofthemagazine. Thefeatures list is spilt
into different sections which has a titlefor each.
Each feature has a briefdescriptionbelowit togive
the reader an insidetothemagazinebeforeseeing
the full page. This makes iteasier for thereader to
find exactly whatthey arelooking for.
Contents Page Analysis