Analysing music magazine covers

Q is Britain's biggest music magazine covering a wide range of music genres. The name is explained in the tag line, 'Q the music' and at first glance appears to fit all the expected conventions of a magazine front cover. The magazine had a red, white and black colour scheme, which straight away suggests a unisex target audience, the main image and straplines also support this. The main image is Madonna, an extremely popular and successful pop artist, it is a mid shot of her side on, giving direct eye contact to the camera with quite a fierce facial expression. This can either appeal to men or women, other women may aspire to be like her and see her as a role model and they may want to gain the authority and power she seems to have, men are likely to be attracted to her more physically. Straplines like 'Michael Stripe, Russell Brand, Kaiser Chiefs, Girls Aloud..' show the magazines wide audience as these stars are all quite different, men, women, bands, showing the magazine does not just fit one genre of music inside, hopefully showing there is something for any music lover.


The magazine has a kicker of 'Madonna' in large red block capitals coming across the magazine front, this is very eye catching and links with the main image, giving a double impact for a Madonna fan. The layout of the cover is full, but not too overcrowded, the main image, and the block red name, and kicker are the first to catch the eye. The straplines all anchor the main image and give a nice even appearance. Across the bottom of the page there is a diagonal banner  in grey, saying 'Free inside! 70 page special Women In Music' with a smaller image of a women artist on the left, the diagonal appearance makes the layout look more complex and again attracts attention. There is also a pug on the right side of the magazine, in the middle, with the union jack on, linking to the text 'The 50 best British albums as voted by you!'. This pug also shows personal language, addressing the audience directly, involving them.