Publisher- Bauer
Editor in Chief- Paul Rees
Main Image Photographer- David Bailey
Genre- Covers all genres giving a comprehensive
view of the music scene of yesterdays and today.
The masthead of the magazine, entitles "Q" which could mean "Quality", it could also be interpreted as part of the phrase "Q the music", as the magazine website is http://www.qthemusic.com/. The masthead is found in the top left-hand corner of the magazine, which is conventional. The background of the masthead is red which is associated with royalty, this links with the idea of the magazine being a "quality" magazine. NME magazine uses red writing on a white background whereas Q is the opposite. This could be seen as the magazines showing direct diversity to each other as NME delivers new music, whereas Q is about music that has left a mark in the industry, i.e quality music.
The main image displays Paul McCartney through the use of a medium close up. He is a music legend, which is ideological of the genre. He is that famous the audience only need to see his eyes and his hair to recognise him. It's almost as if he walking the streets, hiding under his coat so that no one realises it's him, because he doesn't want to be mauled by a group of screaming fans. The fact that he is looking directly at the audience creates interaction with them, creating a visual direct address. The image is centred at the hand and not the conventional area which is the eyes. This because the audience don't need to be at eye-level with him to realise who he is. Also his hand is helping to hide his face even more, he is physically holding his jacket in front of his own face. David Bailey is one of, if not, the most well-known photographers in the world, and as he has photographed this image for Q it build up the idea of "quality" even more.
This magazine is breaking the conventions by not advertising cover lines on the front cover. This is because the ??? page edition of Paul McCartney's story sells the magazine itself. There is no need in clouding the focal selling point by bombarding the simplistic and effective splash with unnecessary anchorage.
The banner line is stating the superiority of the Beatles and the fact they are all music legends. The red font colour here is almost referring to the Beatles as royalty of the music industry. Also, the fact that Paul McCartney's name is written on a gold background connotes the idea that he is famous and wealthy, the best of the best as we associate these ideas with the colour. His name is written in bold, black writing to relate the text, (name of the musician), with the image itself. This is because he is wearing a black coat which directly connects the image to the black writing. They have boldly written Beatles to emphasise the and highlight the most important word, giving anchorage to the main image. The font of the banner line is significant to the ideology of the magazine, due to the simpleness. They don't need to use an attractive font to interest the audience as the quotation, and content of the magazine, is more important than the typeface.
The magazine itself provides an ideological view of a "quality" lifestyle. Readers buy into this and aspire to be in the shoes of the celebrities/musicians they are reading about. The audience for Q is the more mature, music lover. They are targeting the social class groups A & B, this is due to the high price as people in these social classes have a lot higher income than other social groups. Also, this particular audience are more accustom to relate to the aspirational lifestyle, and would find it easier to feel apart of that community of class. I believe that the gender of the reader would be male dominated as the artist displayed is male, in other issues bands such as U2 and Muse are the main image, which are all male bands. It could also be seen in the sense that i would be women dominated, as women tend to find male bands attractive and read only for that sense.
The bar code is shown in the top right hand corner with the dateline, price and website clearly stated. The price is written in a small font size and is written in bold so it isn't hard to locate, this is conventional of a music magazine front cover. There is a monthly edition as the dateline reads "June 2010".
Summary of Analysis
From analysing this front cover I have learned how to break particular conventions with an effective result. I have also learned how to use colour schemes to create oposal with other music magazines. How to connote certain massages and meanings through the main image and colour schemes, and how sometimes simplicity is the most effective splash.
