Q Magazine Analysis

Q magazine a popular music magazine and has a wide target audience range because many different genres of music is mentioned in the magazine. Q magazine is well known for their review section where the review different music, films, television shows and lots of other things.

Using colours such as pink and yellow make this issue of the magazine appeal to women as these are girly colours. There are also colours such as black, white and red making the magazine not just specific for women, as Q magazine appeals to a lot of males too. There are also a variety of fonts so the front cover looks more interesting. As the cover photo is a picture of Lana Del Rey, her name is the biggest on the cover of the magazine, showing that she is the featured article in the magazine. Lots of magazines like to use fonts that look like handwriting, such as what Q have done with Lana Del Rey's name. This makes the cover look more exciting . It also helps with Lana Del Rey's image of rebellion. As there are other artists mentioned such as Jay-Z, Kanye West and Kings of Leon, it shows that Q tries to feature a large range of music genres so that their magazine can appeal to a lot of people.

In the picture of Lana Del Rey, she has blood dripping down her face. This very much reflects her image of being unique and quite hostile. Her songs can be quite dark, and she is not smiling in this photo. This photo has been particularly chosen because she would like to give off an image to her fans and the viewer of this magazine of being quite weird and different. This is not casual like the pictures from Kerrang! magazine, as you would probably not see Lana Del Rey going out with fake blood on her face and a tiara. The photo also shows what she's wearing. White is usually a colour that signifies purity, and this contrasts with the fact that she has blood on her face with isn't seen as pure. The white and red also fits in with the colour scheme as you can see coverlines around her that are white and red. The coverline at the bottom says 'So What's So Bloody Good?' referring to the blood going down her face in this picture. This shows that magazine to have a sense of humour (even if that was a terrible joke) and that the article will be enjoyable and not a completely serious read.

The strapline at the top is in a zigzag pattern and it very colourful, showing that the magazine is fun. All the coverlines are around the magazine and do not overlap the cover photo too much. Her face is completely clear from any text, which shows it to be of most importance. The fonts used, the sizez and colours are relevant to what it says. Such as the '26 festivals to blow your minds' is written in a fun, festival styled font. It is prioritised by putting it in it's own graphic, made bright yellow and the writing is capitalised, this shows that that article is a main feature in the magazine.

 

It is likely that this is one of 2 or 3 contents  pages from this particular issue.

The contents page is very similar to the one from Kerrang!, except the colours are much more simple, sticking to just black, red and white. The pages and page numbers are on the left side of the page. The title of the pages are capitalised to indicate that that's the page name, and there is a description underneath of what's on the page, but this is in lower case so the reader can easily pick out the title. The page number is next to the title, it uses the same graphics in each magazine when numbering the pages to keep it consistent and memorable for the reader.

 

At the top, the headline clearly shows it's a contents page and it has the Q magazine logo and slogan underneath. The 'Q' logo is on every page in the magazine, this makes the logo memorable for the reader without them even noticing.

 

There are pictures on the contents page to make it more appealing. The pictures are relevent to the article they are from, and it states on the picture the page number in which they can find the article. The picture of Lana Del Rey is similar to the one on the cover, except it is an extreme close up. The magazine have done this to look as if they have cropped the photo straight from the article to make it look as if there is a lot more to see and reader. This makes the reader interested to see more as it makes Lana Del Rey look mysterious. The other pictures are more casual, they are less glamourous asthey are not featured so much in the magazine. They are smaller to make Lana's article seem more important. 

 

 

In this double page spread, a picture of Lana Del Rey is covering the whole of the left page and the article is on the right. Lana has her eyes closed, the picture is very staged and the colours are very unatural. This makes her seem more glamourous and this is not how you would see her in her everyday life. It's a very dark and sinister looking photo, which reflects a lot of her songs. This is how she would like to be portrayed to the media. The lighting causes a lot of contrast to add to the sinister feel. You cannot see much detail making her seem more mysterious.

 

The layout is very simple, the big lettering clearly indicates where the main article starts. In most of Q magazine's featured articles, they have a background graphic of a large letter from the start of the article, which makes it easily recognisable that it's Q magazine. There is a short introduction before the article actually starts about how she got on during the photoshoot. To differentiate this from the main article, the text is bigger and not part of a column. The introduction is quite dark and deep, using words like 'demonic', describing her as 'bruised and broken', making the reader want to read on.

 

The writing style is not too serious to make it boring, but the language is informative and not too informal or taboo. This makes the article seem more truthful as it gives off the impression of facts to the reader instead of chatty, informal language that sounds like casual gossip. We cannot see the questions asked by the interview themselves, but we can see direct quotes from Lana in the article, making it more interesting and personal for the reader. Especially the quote where she states the picture of her being 'bruised and broken' is her life, this intrigues the readers from the start.