Format Research Magazine 3 - Q

The third magazine that i looked at was Q magazine. i started by looking at the front cover and analyzing it:

 On the front cover of Q magazine there is only one image and that is the main image, this is of the band Arctic Monkeys. This image covers the whole page and is big and bold. It then has writing to the left side of the image this clearly shows that it is the main article of the issue this week and that it is an important part to the magazine. Part of one of the band members head covers part of the masthead, although you can still clearly see the masthead this shows that the band is an significant part of the magazine and they are trying to make it more eye catching so that the viewer will read the article inside.

The Bar-Code of this magazine is in the right hand bottom corner, this is good because it means that it is out the way and it will not interrupt anything else on the magazine front cover. The bar-code also has the price right next to it in really small writing, this is also good as it means that it is out of the way. This could also be seen as a bad quality of the magazine though as you need to be able to see the price quite clearly and the writing is too small and it blends in with the bar-code to much so you struggle to find it when taking a first glance. People want to be able to see the price so they know how much they will be paying for the magazine.

I then went on to analyzing the contents page of Q:

After that i then finished by analyzing one of the double page spreads from the magazine: 

This article from Q magazine is about Rizzle Kicks and how they challenged Andrew Perry to a go karting competition, it also talks about there music that they have being doing and a bit about them. This article is very different compared to the rest of the magazine as from the front cover you get the idea that the magazines genre is punk rock and music like that but actually this magazine clearly has a wider range and audience as they have pop rap Rizzle Kicks article inside.

The layout of this double page spread is one big picture. It has a main image that covers the whole double page spread. This picture is of the two boys in there go carting outfits the image is so big so that it catches the viewer’s eye and would make them want to read on. The article also has a small amount of text which is written in a small serif font the reason that the font is small is so that they can fit more writing on the page and then even more writing on the second double page spread that they have wrote more on. The masthead of this article is very different as it is scattered on both of the pages on the left side it says “Top “ and on the right side it says “Gear” this is quite quirky. The writing is in a san-serif font and is really large this is quite informal and it stands out a lot more. The subheading of the article is in a white text box and has black writing this is so it stands out more as it is in a text box. The subheading is there to give more information about the article to the reader and it also makes them want to read on more. The colour scheme is still held well with this article. They have use red white and black, black is for the background colour and some of the writing. The white is used for the masthead as it is the house style and it is also used for most of the text then you have bits of red which is used as text boxes so that they stand out more. It is good that they are carrying on with the colour scheme as this matches the brand of the Q magazine really well.   

In all I feel that this article is an informal article as it is aimed at the younger reader. It uses simple lexis so that it is an easy read for the reader. It also uses large images and small amounts of writing on the first page. Although the font is quite formal, because the masthead is so large I feel that it is more informal as it that is the main font that you see first giving you the instant idea that it is an informal article.