2. Q Magazine
Q’s Mission Statement:
“Q is the magazine that brings music alive.
It draws together the biggest stars, the most
exciting phenomena, the new artists that
matter and a healthy dose of irreverence to
create an unmissable widescreen picture of
what’s really happening in rock and roll
right now.”
Circulation:
64,596 (Jan-Jun '12)
Q Magazine is a monthly British music magazine, published Readership:
by Bauer Media Group. Bauer Media Group is a 71,000 (April–Sept '12)
multinational media company with its headquarters in
Hamburg, Germany, which operates in 15 countries
worldwide. In total, Bauer Media Group is responsible for
publishing 38 million magazines a week. Along with Q
Magazine, they also publish Kerrang Magazine, and other
brands such as puzzle magazines, women’s lifestyle
magazines and TV listings magazines.
3. Q Magazine
The overall colour scheme for this magazine is mainly red,
white and black, which have been used for the logo, text
and layout style. These colours are all very bright and
contrast with each other, helping the magazine to stand
out and to build an identity for Q. This colour scheme is very
consistent and is used effectively on all of the pages of the
magazine to make specific sections and words stand out
on the page. The photos used throughout the magazine
are all high quality and the colours are enhanced to allow
them to stand out.
The image of Florence Welch on the front cover in
particular uses a lot of colour in order to catch the eye of
the reader. She naturally has very brightly coloured hair, so
the makeup team has used a very bright colour palette
around her eyes to contrast with her hair and make the
colour of her actual eyes stand out more.
4. Q Magazine
Mulvey (1975), stated that the media, “created images of
women that were used for the gratification of men, rather
than the women being a subject of the action,” which is
why Q have decided to use this particular image to fill the
whole front page as they know this will be an effective
way of drawing in male attention to the magazine. The
same theory can be applied to the images featured in the
double page spread – the featured artist has been styled
in a way that will attract the male gaze – skin tight clothing
with a low neckline - and posed to look more feminine and
revealing as they want to carry on that message they
portrayed on the front cover to the men that have been
attracted to buy the magazine in the first place.
Her hair has also been left down to look more natural, but
it also helps to frame her face, and particularly in the front
cover image, to fill more of the space on the page. In
order to further persuade male readers, Q has included a
sample of one of the images from the double page spread
in the contents page in order to further entice male
readers. Other images that have been used are all taken
from articles within the magazine to give a visual idea to
the readers what they can read about, without having to
actually read the contents.
5. Q Magazine
The front cover image itself has a medium close-up
composition in order to focus directly on her face, and to
allow readers to emotionally connect with her through the
facial expressions. The first thing a viewer is naturally drawn to
is the eyes, and in order to maximize this, the rule of thirds is
used in order to frame the image so the eyes are present in
top third of the image and where the two vertical
intersection would meet with the top horizontal line.
Combined with the use of bold makeup, the eyes connote a
fairly emotional, but powerful feeling, which could be used to
connect the readers with the mood of the article.
Similar techniques have been applied to the images within
the double page spread to help connote the raw, sad
emotion of the article – it also really stands out and would
allow readers to quickly find it if they were simply flicking
through the magazine. Connecting with a particular image
can help to sell a magazine to a customer through that initial
„flicking-through‟ stage most people do in the store before
they decide on buying the product. Other close-up’s, mid-
shots and similar have been used throughout the contents
pages to allow readers to clearly identify who is in the
images, and therefore will tell them who is featured within
the rest of the magazine.
6. Q Magazine
The layout and design of the magazine links in a lot
with the images and the colour scheme as they are
used to help distinguish between different sections of
the magazine. On the contents page for example,
different coloured shapes and lines are used to
„section-off‟ different pieces of text and also build an
identity for the magazine. If lines have been used for
example on one page, they are then used in a
similar way on similar pages. The use of text
separators/lines also helps to stop pages from
looking too over-crowded, and also helps to guide
the reader as to what order they need to read the
text in
7. Q Magazine
When text and images are present on the same
page, like on the double page spread for
example, the text is placed in spacious areas
around the image to fill any big gaps on the
page and to also make reading the article more
interesting. Typically, quotes are used in this way
to give readers a sneak-peek into what they are
going to read in the actual interview or article.
Contrastingly, the front page’s layout is quite
poor – it is very basic and there isn‟t a lot to look
at. The Q logo in the top left corner looks too big
and out of place as it cuts off a large portion of
the image. However, the use of a single
headline in the corner does mean that all of the
focus from the reader will be drawn straight to
that one, which is what readers want as it is the
main article of the whole magazine, and what
the main image is based on too. This basic
layout is due to the fact that the magazine is a
subscribers-only edition, which is often used by
fans to frame and keep the front cover.
8. Q Magazine
Q has chosen a really powerful, emotional quote
taken directly from the featured article to use on
the front page in order for readers to really
connect with it. “I feel so alone,” is a relatively short
quote to use for a headline, but it automatically
gives away the general tone and feeling of the
article, which is effective in allowing readers to
connect with and understand the magazine, or the
article itself. However, it would be more
appropriate and effective for Q to actually list
more of the featured articles on the front page,
otherwise potential readers who have maybe
never read the magazine before won’t know what
the magazine basically stands for, and so readers
won‟t know what to expect within the magazine.
Sometimes customers don‟t actually have the time
to stand and flick through the magazine before
buying it, so if they don’t see anything on the front
cover that doesn‟t interest them, they probably
won’t buy it.
9. Q Magazine
The piece of text above the barcode indicates to the reader that
the front cover is exclusive to subscribers only. The use of the
word “exclusive” makes the readers feel more special, as if they
belong to a Q magazine „club‟, and allows for the readers to
really connect with the overall feel the magazine projects. On
the contents page, particular words such as „features‟ and
„regulars‟ indicates to the readers what is really special about the
magazine, and also allows new readers to become familiar with
Q magazine and it‟s reputable identity.
10. Q Magazine
The use of quotes taken straight from the
magazine for headlines or titles and sub-
titles makes reading the magazine more
relatable – it allows readers to directly
connect with the interviewee and the
feelings they are portraying through their
words. Reading just snippets of the text as
well also helps to intrigue readers, they will
want to find out what they say next, what
caused them to say it etc. This is particularly
effective on the double page spread, as it
works well with the informal, quite humorous
writing styles of the interviewer, Ted Kessler,
for example, “she also looks after her day-
to-day money as Welch, like the Queen,
doesn‟t really carry the stuff around.” This
writing style is effective in connecting with
the characteristics and personalities of the
readers.
11. Q Magazine
The typical target audience of Q magazine is
young to middle aged adults, who have an
interest in more common genres of music, such as
pop, rock, indie etc. To suit this target audience,
Q wants to provide a lot of factual information,
but also make the magazine seem quite fun, and
actually interesting to pick up and read. A
classical music magazine, for example, may
contrastingly use a more formal writing style, as
target readers are likely to be older, and
interested in the facts only.
12. Q Magazine
Overall, Q magazine is strong in creating an identity for itself.
After over 300 issues of the magazine, the brand and identity
of Q is widely known across Britain, and this is ultimately what
sells the magazine. The use of intriguing images and writing
styles, bright colours and stylish layout helps to make the
magazine visually interesting to look at, and captivating to
read, which, over the years, has given Q its reputation as
one of the best current music magazines. However, there
are some weaknesses to the magazine, such as some of the
double page spread pages and the contents pages – a lot
of information is present on individual pages and could
become too overwhelming for some readers, but on the
other hand, some readers may enjoy seeing a lot of
information for them to read.
13. Q Magazine
For my own magazine, I think I am going to use Q‟s image
style as an influence for my own pictures, as I really like the
thought they put into considerations such as the hair style,
make-up, emotions and overall positioning of the model. I
also find the writing style very influential; the main articles
are almost like a documentary – they detail every piece of
information to make it more informative for the reader, but
also combines fun and interesting commentary to make
actually reading the text more suitable for the target
audience. I have also started to create my own „identity‟ for
my magazine through the design of my media pack, as I
have similarly used lines and shapes to section text and
create an overall design for the page’s layout, so this is
something I will continue to use Q for as inspiration.
