The document discusses the masthead of the music magazine Q. It notes that Q has a recognizable bright red background and bold white letter Q logo that remains consistent across issues. This consistency makes the magazine easily identifiable and has contributed to its popularity. The logo exemplifies style without being boring and the bright red color stands out on store shelves. Red also has male-oriented and elite connotations that align with Q's target audience and positioning as a higher-end magazine.

1. EXISTING MAGAZINE MASTHEADS

2. The masthead of Q magazine is instantly recognisable through its bright, fire red
background and bold, white ‘Q’ in a fairly traditional and classic font. The masthead is the
same font for every issue (excluding some that can be slightly altered e.g. one Halloween
issue). This makes it an easily recognisable and identifiable magazine to all people and
helps it to be well known and popular. People recognise Q’s quality and character purely
through looking at the logo at the top corner as it is renowned for being the most popular
and successful music magazine; as well as maintaining quality, class and supporting
influential music artists. The logo is simplistic yet clear, bold and professional. As
mentioned, the inspiration for calling the magazine ‘Q’ originates from old-fashioned vinyl
decks as not only does the Q look similar to these record players, but the act of placing the
arm onto the record was known as ‘cueing’. This suggests Q is a traditional music
magazine with the original flare and passion music had when it started out. It exemplifies
class and style without being boring and too uniformed. The ‘Q’ is very large and takes up
just over 1/12th of the page with just the logo. The background of the box is bright red which
is extremely eye-catching and recognisable and would easily stand out against other music
magazine covers in a shop. The colour red is a uni-sex colour but can also be seen as
predominantly male; therefore emphasising the connection with Q’s male skew target
audience. Moreover, red has connotations of wealth, dominance, class and royalty which
highlights the fact that Q is a high end magazine and is also quite highly priced in the
magazine market– further emphasising the ethos of Q and its audience as well as its
representation as a whole.

3. The masthead is the same font for every issue (excluding some that can be
slightly altered e.g. one Halloween issue). This makes it an easily recognisable
and identifiable magazine to all people and helps it to be well known and
popular. People recognise NME’s rebellious nature and character purely through
looking at the logo at the top corner as it is renowned for being one of the most
popular and successful new music magazine; as well as maintaining quality, a
rebellious image and supporting influential music artists. The logo is simplistic
yet clear and bold. The colour of the text is bright red which is extremely eye-catching
and recognisable and would easily stand out against other music
magazine covers in a shop. The colour red is a uni-sex colour but can also be
seen as predominantly male; therefore emphasising the connection with NME’s
target audience. Moreover, red has connotations of wealth, dominance, rock and
punk which highlights the fact that NME is a high end magazine and is also quite
highly priced in the magazine market; as well as being aimed at people who
listen to more punk/rock artists– further emphasising the ethos of NME and its
audience as well as its representation as a whole

4. The masthead is the same font for every issue (excluding some that can
be slightly altered e.g. one Halloween issue). This makes it an easily
recognisable and identifiable magazine to all people and helps it to be well
known and popular. People recognise Rolling Stones classic rock nature
and character purely through looking at the logo at the top corner as it is
renowned for being one of the most popular and successful rock music
magazine; as well as maintaining quality, a traditional image and
supporting popular rock music artists. The logo is simplistic yet clear and
bold and reflects the traditional Rolling Stone style of text through their own
band masthead. The colour of the text is a sultry red which is extremely
both classy and iconic and would easily stand out against other music
magazine covers in a shop. The colour red is a uni-sex colour but can also
be seen as predominantly male; therefore emphasising the connection with
Rolling Stones target audience. Moreover, red has connotations of wealth,
dominance, rock and class which highlights the fact that Rolling Stones is a
high end magazine and is also quite highly priced in the magazine market;
as well as being aimed at people who listen to more classic rock artists–
further emphasising the ethos of Rolling Stone and its audience as well as
its representation as a whole