Textual analysis of Q Magazine

"Q" is a music magazine published monthly in the UK, which is also distributed in the USA and Australia. Its publisher is Bauer Company. It has been published since 1986.

In this task I'm going to analyse the front cover of the August 2008 issue. The main photo presents Duffy and Paul Weller. It looks professional, so I assume it was taken in a studio. It is a medium shot; we can see the characters are framed from the hips up. Both of them stand naturally. Duffy wears a blue shirt and Paul has got a black shirt and a striped suit on. The clothes are informal and I think it connotes the expression of Duffy's music - peaceful, relaxing, light.

As we can see from the main headline, this issue is focused on duets. Inside are four different interviews with musicians who work in duets. What is interesting, they made four different covers (one for each duo), so the reader can choose which one to buy. In my opinion is a very good idea. The interviews are already a unique thing, but the additional covers make this issue very personal for the buyer.

Colours used for this layout are common for "Q" magazine - white, black and sort of brownie-gold colour. The Masthead presents the letter "Q" on the red-background square. This particular use of colours and the well balanced arrangements make the cover looks serious and sophisticated, as if the magazine is aimed at the mature audience, which is actually true, because its founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth felt that the music press of their time was ignoring a generation of older music buyers. So they created higher-standard music magazine, which at that time stood out among other music magazines.

On the right from the masthead is the small photo of "The Ting Tings". The main headline has got a font size twice and even three times bigger than the rest of the cover's text. That is what draws our attention to it. What is more the main photograph blocks out a little bit of the masthead, it is because the brand is well known for its buyers and it allows editors to expand the text more over the space of the cover, without causing any complication.