Q - General Analysis

The next magazine I am going to analyse is Q magazine. It is published monthly in the United Kingdom and has been running since 1986. The magazine is published byGerman publishers, Bauer Media Group. They are also the publishers of popular magazines heat, FHM and Kerrang! According to them, the magazine was initially going to be called 'Cue' however it was changed prior to release so as not to confuse the magazine with a snooker one. The magazine is mainly aimed at people who are into indie, rock and alternative music. The magazine costs £3.99 with a circulation of 94,811. The readership of the magazine is far greater as people tend to share magazines and allow others to read them. This figure shows that over 700,000 people read the magazine roughly after each issue is published. Their target audience is predominantly men, however both sexes do read the magazine. Their website is http://www.qthemusic.com/.

NME - Inside Analysis

There are 67 pages in the magazine, 19 of which is made up of adverts. This is over a quarter of the magazine; 28%. This is not a lot compared to others who have over half of the the magazine containing adverts. Adverts are the production companies main income. They would charge significant amounts of money in order for someone to place an ad, and it also depends where abouts in the magazine they put it. The first page in is the most expensive place to put an advert, whereas a thumbnail ad in the middle of the magazine somewhere would not be as expensive. The adverts can be categorised into groups such as clothes, electronics, and gigs and tours.

Gigs and Festival Articles:

• Babyshambles Insight
• Line up for NME Awards Tour 2011 Revealed
• Rhianna
• Twin Shadow
• Tinchy Stryder
• Foals
• Manic Street Preachers
• Release the Bats
• Tame Impala

Interviews:

• Damon Albarn
• Chester Bennington
• My Chemical Romance
• Suede (their comeback)
• Jenny and Johnny
• The New Puritans
• Mick Rock
• Alice Cooper

These sort of articles would appeal to the target audience. Although I personally have not heard of some of the artists mentioned, people who listen to this genre of music will know who they are and will want to get in the know about their idols lives and to know when they are going to tour.

In the magazine, there are 11 double page spreads. The vast majority of theses double pages contain the interviews stated above and the feature article on the front cover also has a double page spread (just as any main article in a magazine would). The NME magazine follows a house style which means the layout is similar on each page and the same fonts are used throughout. If there were too many fonts, the magazine would look unattractive. Too much would cause the reader to not know where to look on the page and instead, would put it down. The pictures in the magazine are set out in an attractive way. Instead of being straight and using the rule of thirds, they appear to be at different angles to the page and some even overlap each other. This adds to the appearance to the magazine. If the pictures were all in a line or in a column with the text simply wrapped around it, it would look boring and many people may not want to buy the magazine again. The way in which the magazine has been layed out would appeal to the target audience (mainly the young generation) as it has a fun sort of look to it, whereas, if the pictures were all straight, and the colours were all the same etc.. then the magazine would be more for the older generation who would rather sit and read an article as oppose to looking at pictures and wanting different fonts and colours.

NME - Cover Analysis

As stated before, the main title of the magazine is NME. It stands for 'New Musical Express' which used to be the name of the magazine when it was first published. In the last 20 years, it has abbreviated its name to just NME. Although this is the case, its original name still exists underneath the main title in a smaller text.


The main image of this issue of NME is a picture of the lead singer from the band 'My Chemical Romance'. The picture is a medium close up of the lead singer and is focused on him because of his change in hair colour. The image of the singer, named Gerard Way, shows him to be looking straight down the camera lens and out into the audience. This look may have a 'come and buy me' effect to a person in a shop, especially if they see somebody they look up to with a different hair style. Some could argue that the pose in the picture is fairly feminine due to fingers in his hair and possible seductive look. As well as this, the singers clothing is BLACK, and the background of the magazine is a light blue colour. This has been done so as the bright red of the hair stands out to the audience more. If you were to walk past this magazine in a shop, the first thing your eyes would be drawn to is the colour of the mans hair.

There are only three other pictures that appear on the front cover. Theses are small thumbnail pictures showing the reader some FREE items that they can receive if they were to buy the magazine. It also gives an insight into what else the magazine magazine may contain story wise.


There are different tag lines on the front of the magazine. They are written in the colour white in BLOCK CAPITALS so as they stand out better. They are written in sans serif font however in a small size. This is done so as the the main cover image is not covered by the writing. Although the information displayed in the cover lines is not as important to the reader than the main cover story, it appeals to the reader because they are telling the reader about music performers going on tour.

The title above is the main cover line for the magazine. Looking closely at the title, I can see that it has a drop shadow. This is done so as to make it stand out more to the audience against the darkness of the black shirt. The writing is also in white so as it can be seen clearly against the clothing. As well as this, there are a few different ways the creators have played with the language on the front cover.Above, is a quote from the cover story. The reason there is a quote on the front page of a magazine is to tell the audience about the article they will read inside. The word 'we' suggests that although there is a picture of just the lead singer of the band in question, the article will actually be about them all.

As well as the quote used, the magazine cover uses a pun. 'Gerard Sees Red' could have two meanings to it. Either the obvious, that his hair has changed to this colour, or even to suggest that he is angry about something, and if you were to continue to read, one may think that he is possibly angry about 'what goth has become'.

NME - General Analysis

The first magazine that I am going to analyse is NME. The title stands for 'New Musical Express'. This name did originally appear as the main title for the magazine, however it was abbreviated to just NME in the late 70's. The company which produces it is called IPC (Internation Publishing Corporation). Here is a link to their website. Not only does IPC publish NME magazine, but also 'NUTS' and 'LOOK' magazines. IPC say that 'NME.COM is Europe's biggest and most views music website'. They also say how their magazine 'offers unparalleled access to an affluent young audience and a unique opportunity to communicate with them in an environment that they can relate to and return to frequently'. IPC have also established roughly who is reading NME and have managed to work out that the audience consists of 65% males, 50% 16-24 year olds and 23% 25-34 year olds.

The magazine costs just £2.30 to buy on its own in any newsagent; however it can be subscribed to costing £74.99 for a years subscription. The magazine is published weekly (Wednesday) with a different front cover and article each week. Its current circulation figure reads 38,486. From this figure i can see that every week, if every copy is sold, the £88,517.80 would be made to IPC and NME creators. The figure however could be larger as its readership is considerably more. It is around 325,000. The readership is so much higher than the circulation because it is assumed that for every magazine brought, it is read more than once by a different person each time. As well as this, it is available online for free any time you wish to visit the website http://www.nme.com/

Preliminary Final Front Cover

This is the final product for the preliminary task. Using the initial picture, I have desaturated the background of the picture leaving the main feature in colour. After deciding on different fonts and also a colour scheme, I started assembling the front cover. When i had everything that i wanted on the age, I re-arranged the layout of everything so as the page looked similar to that of a genuine magazine cover. I had to place grey boxes behind some of the text, mainly the yellow text, so as I could read the text well. Before the boxes were there, it was difficult to read with the yellow text against the white shirt. As well as this, the blue text which is on the page has been taken from the thin blue lines on the tie so as the colour scheme matched.




On the right is the contents page for my preliminary task. I used the same colour scheme as my front page in order to achieve the same house style and make it look as though you are reading the same magazine.

Preliminary Task - Original Photo

After taking many photos for potential front covers for my school magazine, I settled on using this one.