Research page: Q

Q magazine is online, has a radio station, an interactive iPad edition. Is on social media sites. Hold live events and also has the annual Q awards.

Q magazine’s representation precedes it, as they are known for having good quality reviews and are famous for their impressive photography shoots inside the magazine.

The title is a trademark image recognised almost everywhere. With the subtitle “Discover great music.” This shows that the magazine is famous for introducing people to good music.

Q magazine was originally meant to be spelt “cue” as if to cue a record to play but they thought that there would be confusion and think that it was a snooker magazine, so they changed the name.

The Q magazine is a rock and roll magazine that’s supposed to celebrate everything that happens in rock and roll.

The average reader of the Q magazine is male, of the ABC1 class range and aged 15-24.

http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/Q

Whilst Q has an average reader profile, there is also other content included that attracts other readers. With articles such as "What is on Usain Bolt's radio?" and with music artists as famous as Bob Dylan to fairly new artists such as Jake Bug, Q magazine actually manages to reach out to others that aren't just in the usual range of readers. 

By including other articles that aren't just in the usual range of a music magazine, it attracts other readers, for maybe just one or two issues for particular artists included or sports men and women who talk about their music choices. 

By including alternate articles and interviews, Q magazine attracts other people to read their magazine that are outside the readership.
This particular cover of Q isn’t aimed at people who listen to rock and roll, as the person photographed is Florence Welch, lead singer of the band Florence and the Machine. As Florence and the machine are mainly an indie band, this cover would entice people who listen to indie music to buy the magazine.
The representation of Florence is one that shows her to be quite fierce and striking, her hair frames her pale face and the blue makeup makes her look slightly ghostly. Yet this image suit's her representation because she produces indie music and her music is quite haunting too. The audience, as a reader of Q would most likely be regular readers, with only a few being one-offs that people have just picked up.

  

The colour is a stand out factor of this particular image. The red contrasts the white writing and stands out among other magazines that might be on the same shelf.

There is also the alternative colour of blue included on the cover. She is wearing blue eyeliner, as well as lines dashes and bullet points in the colour of blue so that the reader finds the presentation attractive, and reads the words included next to the blue highlights.

There is a flash included on the front cover promoting another music artist. There are words around the flash that wouldn’t be seen if they weren’t surrounding it as a border. This makes the reader interested in what else is included in the magazine and what the information surrounding the artist is about. The border of the flash is also blue to contrast the red background and make it stand out.

There is alliteration also included in one of the Plugs. The repeated h sound “heroin’s, hookers and hair metal” makes that title memorable in the readers head and interests them in finding out why those particular words were chosen about the music artist.

There is a puff included as well: “16 page gig blowout.” Engaging a reader who is interested in gig information, and new gig that may possibly be around in their area. Underneath is more information about the gigs in different location such as New York and Tokyo, showing that the readership of Q magazine isn’t just in England, but stretches across the world.

The picture represents the type of music that the band Florence and the Machine produce. It’s been described as moody and dark, there is a gothic feel to it. The image reflects that as the image of Florence Welch has a moody feel and the look that they have captured makes her seem quite scary, which means that it’s a good representation. The eyes are looking straight ahead so that wherever you look the eyes seem to be following you. This technique makes the person pictured look like they want you to but the magazine because the eyes keep following you.

The text is in another contrasting colour to the red of her hair. The main article is in white so it stands out and has the catchy main title being “Florence, woman on the edge.” Which further intrigues the reader to see why this woman is on the edge. There is also the quotation which shows that inside includes an interview with her without having the subtitle that says there is an exclusive interview with Florence Welch inside.

The language on the front of the magazine is comprehensible and has full sentences. This could be to do with the audience of the magazine being of the ABC1 class group.

Contents page analysis:

The Q contents page has a simple layout that is easy to read as to make navigation easier for the reader.

It has the title reading "Q contents" and the subtitle underneath so that it's clear where this contents page is from.

There is also the issue number included at the top. This would usually be on the front cover of the magazine but Q included it on the contents page as to not take away from the overall effect of the front cover of the magazine.

The notable spreads don't have information included about them just images, this is to not give away any information that the article has included in it, and also because the reader wouldn't read any of it because they would only want to read the article and not the synopsis.

The largest article or spread in this magazine would be Lana Del Ray as she has the largest image and takes up most of the room on the contents page. The page number for her spread is in a red box so it contrasts the white writing; effectively telling the reader what page number the article on her is about.

There are two smaller images underneath that are obviously less important as they don't take up as much room, however there is also no synopsis for them, therefore must be important enough that the reader knows what they are about without having to read about them.

Other articles are included at the side with no images and a smaller font. These are generic articles that aren't as heavily reported on as the double page spreads and feature articles. Although they do have a synopsis so that the reader can decide if they are interested in the articles before flicking to them to read.

The top of the contents page column has the title "140 songs to download now" This is enticing to the reader as people who listen to music are always looking for more music to listen to and including an article about new songs to download would encourage them to read on. There is also a stylized pixelated mouse that ties into the theme as the article is based around internet and online downloads that you would need to navigate around using a mouse. This also ties in as the mouse looks as if it's about to click on the article, this tells the reader that it's worth looking at.

Double page spread analysis:

The double page spread of this magazine is obviously focused on Lady Gaga. The image matches the type of music that she produces as she's got a wild hairstyle and barely any clothes on. This type of image matches Lady Gaga's music because she likes to be different, and quirky.

In the image she is wearing something that might be mesh or lace that is odd as the rest of her is bare, this is an odd contrast between the femininity of  the hair and makeup to the things around her neck.

The image takes up the whole left side of the page. This is to entice the reader to the rest of the article as it is quite lengthy. However the people who pick up the magazine would have been interested in the Lady Gaga article as she would most likely be the one photographed on the front of the magazine as she is the biggest feature.

The massive letter L is the start of the article on the right side of the page, this is in red and the only piece of colour in the entire two pages. This provides a contrast between the black and white image and the large letter that is the start of the article.

There is a lot of text in the article as to provide the reader with a lot of information about the music artist featured. There also isn't a title in this article, maybe because there is no particular perspective that the reader is trying to convey on Lady Gaga's life.