Front Cover
Layout- From the first glance of the magazine, you could tell straight away that there’s a lot of featured music related information inside the magazine. Similar to NME’s magazine, Q magazine just uses one image, of the Arctic Monkeys, for the whole front cover, which helps to show off the main story within the magazine. The branding of the magazine with the Q logo is shown in the top left hand corner as the masthead. However, this icon of branding is slightly covered over by the main image and an advertisement banner, which crosses the top of the magazine. As the logo is colour red with white font, it doesn’t make it obsolete as the bright red still glares out from the back of the magazine, standing for its brand. The advertisement is cleverly position at the top of the magazine so if the Q magazine was stacked behind a selection of other magazines, its “special” promotion banner can be noticeable and may grab the reader’s attention.
The left third presents one of the magazines featured articles, The Arctic Monkeys, which gives a brief catchy sentence to describe the upcoming article in the magazine. Even though this isn’t all of the articles for the magazine in the left third, the magazine still wants to show off there big story, to compete against other magazines. The rest of the featured items are position on the right third. Although they don’t give away as much detail about there given stories, each one of them is still featured on the front cover to give the readers an insight to other music articles that the reader may also be interested in, besides Arctic Monkeys.
Font- The style of font is thrown about on the front cover, with various different styles of fonts but some of them have similar purposes to one another. The bold font, such as “Arctic Monkeys”, “Manic Street Preachers” and the name of the bands and artists in the right third, can represent key subheadings for each of the topics articles. The narrow or lower case font, such as the sub text under “White Lies” and “Richard Branson”, can show the brief pieces of information the readers may want to know about before they get stuck into the rest of the magazine.
The contrast between white and grey font can be a bit of a challenge to read in the right third. Unless it was in front of a single coloured backdrop instead of an image, then the grey font wouldn't be blending in to much with the image. Making it clear and easy to read.
Colour Scheme- Even though the branding of the magazine is red, which you can tell by the music magazine company’s logo, it still to me looks like a dark, shady, cold, but sort of retro themed, magazine with lots of different colour blues, shades of grey and the use of black and white text. The magazine tries to brighten the mood of its front cover with a light blue advertisement banner. Another way to attract its target audience instead of using red or orange all the time. The white text is a great contrasting colour to certain areas of the magazine. Making it stand out from the magazine’s background image and so it is clear and visible for the readers to read.
Image- As we can see from the front cover, there only two images presented to the reader. The image of The Arctic Monkeys is clearly shown as the main image, presented as the background image, for the magazine and the main featured article for this magazine. This could increase Q magazines publicity as they are producing music information that could interest fans or readers who like The Arctic Monkeys. The second image is along the advertisement banner which can give the readers a glimpse of the magazines special music story, showing of to the readers what surprise a waits them on “page 17”.
Contents
Layout- The branding of the magazine continues on to the contents page, with logo and the title “contents’, ironically, along the top of the page. Unlike NME the layout is clear and easy to understand. With the top, must read, music stories in the top left and the rest of the featured articles listed in page order, with the band or artists name and a brief introduction to what there stories will hold. On the right, a section that says, “Q Review, the wolds finest music guide”, hosts several interesting music related topics for the reader to also enjoy. An extension at the bottom of the page gives a welcoming for purchasing the magazine. (This magazine was bought on iTunes, so the printed copy may show something else.
The images are positioned out of the way of the featured text, so everything has tried to be spread out across the page, to make it easier of the readers to navigate around the contents page.
Font- The types of font are kept the same through out the contents page. The bold red font highlights a band or artists name whilst the Times New Roman font is used for descriptions and branding the title and sub-headings. It helps to keep everything symmetrical and neat. Next to each highlighted name, a big bold page number is presented to tell the readers what page the story is on, making it easier to navigate the magazine.
Colour scheme- The red branding colour is still consistent on this page. However the rest of the page seems a bit empty in certain areas. There aren't as many blacks or blue, dark, colours as the front cover but where there are blank white gaps, along the margins, it just doesn’t feel like I'm looking at the same magazine just because the front cover didn’t have as much emptiness and bright or white colours, such as the red, purple and sky blue in the review section. Beside the red banner at the top of the page, branding the ‘Q’, the rest of the magazine does seem dull and wouldn’t give off any emotions to the readers. I'm my magazine, I want to use several vibrant colours to capture the readers mood, so it doesn’t look like there reading a plain ‘black and white newspaper’, so to speak. I give credit for making the page seem simple to reader and there aren’t lots of colours bursting out for attention, across the page, but it doesn’t look like there is enough on the page to alert the readers about what they should read.
Images- Cleverly, the magazine has presented the cover story’s image with a sticker or label on top to show the reader that this was the featured story that was shown on the front cover. They have done the same for the special article which was promoted on the front cover as well, by labelling the image with the title, it is trying to be noticed by the readers so you can not ignore it. The two other images represent Green Day’s live concert, top right of the page, and the over one is of the band Haim..., underneath the image cover story image. A band I've never heard of so its a good thing to use to promote there band and get awareness for the magazine.
Double Page Spread
Layout- I the same boat as NME’s double page spread for Franz Ferdinand's cover story. Q magazine has gone for an even briefer opening cover introduction for the rest of the cover story on the next page (cover-inception). They have titled the type of the page in the top left hand corner, “interview: Arctic Monkeys”, and have made it noticeable with red box. Highlighting the topic of the page and still showing the branding of the magazine with the colour of the box and the Q next to “interview”.
The main title of the cover story, “Fire and Ice” has been added into the main image, as we can see with the red smoke breathing over the text. i believe its a cool way of giving some effect to the texts by possible fooling the readers into thinking that the text was in the photo, (but no one is as daft to believe that).
A short introduction to the interview is well presented on the right side of the double page spread with the “...Arctic Monkeys...” highlighted to show the readers that these four musicians are the band. Another neat fact about the page is that the image has a caption saying when and where the image was taken with a cheeky quote to add. It’s usually used to tell the readers what the image is about if the can’t figure.
Font- Most of the font used on the double page spread is sans serif, causing the text to become informal and appeal more to youngsters. The only text that is in serif font is the Q next to where it says “interview” in the top left hand corner of the page. This can show that the brand is formal and that it relates to the brand with the red signature backdrop colour. The title of the cover story blends into the main image, as the red smoke clouds over the text, making it part of the big picture. The caption appears smaller than the rest of the font, showing that it doesn’t have as much importance to the cover story and it does not draw the readers away form the opening paragraph.
The opening paragraph starts of the cover story by introduce the Arctic Monkeys with how they didn’t plan for there road to fame. The only part that sticks out from the rest of the paragraph is “Arctic Monkeys”, but it’s not highlighted red to match the magazines signature colour. Instead it’s yellow. This was possible done so the red text wouldn’t clash with the red smoke and the dazzling cargo container in the main image.
Colour Scheme- The use of the single branded colour, red, is mostly used for the cover page and the main image with the highlighted yellow, “Arctic Monkeys”, standing out form the rest of the text. The red tab along the top left of the cover page alerts the readers that the cover page is labelled as an interview. The red smoke in the image can help promote the brand of Q magazine and making the image almost unique to the magazine with the single branded colour. On the right side of the double page spread where it says the “...Arctic Monkeys...”. It highlights the text to show the readers that these four musicians are the band and it helps to promote the bands publicity with the given cover story about the band.
Images- The single image crosses the width of the double page spread, braising the readers for the upcoming interview, by showing the readers who the band is. The bands striking poses show that they mean business, with the lead singer, Alex Tuner, staring straight at the camera, showing his importance in the band.
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