Textual Analysis 2

Q Magazine December 2009 issue

Overview

This magazine is specifically aimed at all music fans, not so much metal and heavy rock fans, but it still contains articles with rock groups as well as ppop singers, like the cover star of this issue. Q is very much a lifestyle magazine, as it is quite gloosy and more 'clean cut' than others on the market; i'd say it was aimed at people in their 20s and up. Q is a mass market product and is published by Bauer London Lifestyle Ltd.

Front Cover

We have the banner showing us the highlight of this issue - The Q Awards results. We have a very royal and majestic colour scheme on the page of Red, Gold, Black and White; these are co-ordinated colours as they compliment each other. There are two banners on the page: one across the top informing us that this the awards issue, and one two thirds of the way down the page, informing us of the winners, but not the awards they won. This is cleverly used to lure the reader in so they can find out who won which award. There is also a cover line incorporated into the second banner, telling us about an interview with Arctic Monkeys. We also have cover lines at the bottom of the cover, informing us of articles about Oasis and Robbie Williams. Q being quite a glossy and upmarket magazine, feature some of the most popular artists in music today, hence why it can charge £3.90; just on the front cover the list of artists featured in this issue alone include Lily Allen, Muse and Lady GaGa. For the background, we have a long shot of the Arctic Monkeys in black and white, to keep with the colour scheme, all except the Q award which is in gold, yet it keeps with the colour scheme also.

Contents Page

The contents page takes up two pages and has shots of the featured articles within the magazine, along the bottom, to show some of the articles people might be interested in. Q also uses an original system of sorting theres contents' lists between "regulars" and "features"; the "regulars" section is for everything that is usually in Q, and the "features" is for everything specific to this issue. For most of the articles lsited, we have a title for each and a few sentences that form a cover line. The only excpetions to this is the "Q review" section which gives a cover line, but gives specific examples of what is being reviewed, it entices the reader in with examples of the most anticipated album reviews. The centre of the page is taken is taken up by another shot of Arctic Monkeys and a series of images taken from inside the issue. There is no editorial on the contents page

Feature

Part of the main article of this issue, which is the Q awards results, is an interview with the winners of the Best Live Act award - Arctic Monkeys. As this is such a 'big' award to win they receive an eight page spread. Compared to the other articles on the winners of big awards ( Lily Allen - Best Track, Sonic Youth - Q Innovation In Sound and Kasabian - Best Album), they all have a spread varying between 2 and 5 pages. This shows how important both the award and the band who won it are, to our music industry. On most of these pages we have a 60/40 split between images and text; the images in this article mainly refer to the award that they won, as most of the images are of them warming up on stage before a gig or relaxing back stage. Throught the pages we have quotes from the article that are enlarged to grab the readers attention, lines such as 'one of ourmates was goin to get our faces tattooed on his arse' draw the reader in as they are quite obscure and make the reader want to read more of the arrticle.

Textual Analysis 1

Q Magazine April 2009 issue

Overview

This magazine is specifically aimed at all music fans, not so much metal and heavy rock fans, but it still contains articles with rock groups as well as ppop singers, like the cover star of this issue. Q is very much a lifestyle magazine, as it is quite gloosy and more 'clean cut' than others on the market; i'd say it was aimed at people in theur 20s and up. Q is a mass market product and is published by Bauer London Lifestyle Ltd.

Front Cover

We have the banner showing the most important article within this issue, which here is an interview with Lily Allen. This headline states "sexy beast Lily Allen & her wicked ways...", using a colour scheme of black, white, blue and red. This is used to lure the reader in, so they can read about Miss Allen and her "wicked ways". We also have a clever use of graphics on this page as the image behind the headline is a metaphor for the headline; which states "sexy beast", which compliments the picture she is accompanied by two black jaguars. The "sexy" part is shown by the fact that Lily is topless. If we look at the actual co-ordination of the image itself, Lily Allen is positioned directly in the middle, so she stand out to pasers by. We also have use of cover lines in the top right hand corner and along the bottom of the page; using quotes and then explaining, very briefly, what the article is about. We also have an exclusive article with The Stone Roses.

Contents Page
The contents page takes up two pages and has shots of the featured articles within the magazine, along the bottom, to show some of the articles people might be interested in. Q also uses an original system of sorting theres contents' lists between "regulars" and "features"; the "regulars" section is for everything that is usually in Q, and the "features" is for everything specific to this issue. For most of the articles lsited, we have a title for each and a few sentences that form a cover line. The only excpetions to this is the "Q review" section which gives a cover line, but gives specific examples of what is being reviewed, it entices the reader in with examples of the most anticipated album reviews. The other exception to the above rule is the cover story of Lily Allen, which has a much larger cover line, forming a fairly large paragraph. The centre of the page is taken is taken up by another shot of Lily Allen's exclusive photoshoot for Q and an exclusive shot of Guy Garvey for Q. There is no editorial on the contents page.

Feature
The main article of this isue of Q is that of an interview with Lily Allen and rather than it being a double page it takes up 9 whole page within this issue; this is simply because Lily Allen is so popular in modern day culture, that the editors of Q know the issue will sell because of her being on the cover. On most of these pages, there is a 50/50 split between word and images. The images in this article do not just relate to Lily's music, it also refers to her entirelife, her social life, her sense of fashion and her music. in the shoot she changes outfit in each shot; each is very fashionable and quite sexy, which links to the theme of the article as "Lily Allen - Sexy Beast." Through the article we have quotes from the text on the page, enlarged and placed in the image. We have a basic colour scheme of black, purple and white, which is shown in the background, the colour of the jaguars and Lily's clothes. The article itself has many themes: sex, wilderness, animalistically and fashion. Each of which is presented in both Lily's word and the images provided with it.

Action Plan

I’ve been asked to make the front cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine. This is what I plan to do 00000

Action Plan
Ø Research and analyse at least 3 different types of music magazines, focusing on different types of music
Ø Using my textual analysis’, I will form a questionnaire to find out what types of music people like and what they want to read about.
Ø Decide what music my magazine will feature and use this create to create a suitable name for it
Ø Decide what my double page feature will be about and ask for feedback on this topic
Ø Acquire suitable images for my magazine and its articles
Ø Design about 3 templates as possible designs for each the cover, contents page and the feature
Ø Use feedback given to pick one and improve it
Ø Post final designs on my blog and ask for improvements
Ø Apply any improvements people have suggested
I’ve been asked to make the front cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine. This is what I plan to do 00000

evaluation!!

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
the key ingredients of a front cover of a media magazine are a masthead, cover lines, pictures, barcode and a price .
My magazine utilises the power of attraction with such eye grabbing features as pictures and co-ordinating colours: yellow and purple..These pull the potential buyer in, raising questions in their head about the articles inside; this means they are intrigued about what they will find if they buy it so they HAVE to buy it to satisfy their curiosity. I also added to these cover lines such as 'we find out why...' this lures the reader into wanting to know what the magazine holds. i also used questionnaires to find out what my audience wanted from student magazines and toher aspects of the project to point me in the right direction. everything i did was directed by public opinion from the colour scheme to the layout of thye front page itself.

these images images are examples of front covers and contents page; the two on the left hand side are my final designs formy pre-liminary task. my front cover has many of the aspects that already published magazines use; for example, i have my mast head on the top and my smaller articles with cover lines on the side.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

yes, my magazine represents students in their prime; showing what they are good at and portraying them as they see themselves. i also took the press's angle on teenage culture and life and turned it t be on the teenager's side. this magazine mainly represents teenagers and students, however there are other social groups in it as we have a goth/emo on the front cover, but, this does not signify its target audience specifically; it could have been a boy in a burberry cap and tracksuit bottoms it is about the person themselves and their achievemnt as a student. my articleon teenage stereotypes usesthe images of a group of 'hoodies', a knife, a cigarrette and a spliff; i used these to portray what society has deemed stereotypical for teenagers to engage in. however, i used this prejudice to form an article that would attract teenager; the other side of the coin, so to speak.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

it would not be a media institution that wqould distribute this, it is about college life and college students so it would be aimed for distribution within a college itself. it contains articles and images from around ludlow college so it makes sense for it to bo distributed within ludlow college.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

my target audience is teenagers and students attending their final year of high school, attrending collegeor university. this particular magazine would also be aimed at, specifically, student musicians.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

i attracted my audience by forming articles that teenagers would be interested in, such as their self-image, music, video games etc. i also used a rather unusual colour scheme to attract their attention. using student lexis and semantic fields i related to my audience so they felt that this was written by one of their own. i used my feedback from ym questionnaire to adapt and change anything that didn't attract my audience correctly.

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

throughout this task, i have used Blogger to record my efforts electronically. i also used my digital camera to take the photos used on my front page. i used microsoft publisher to make my front page and contents page. throughtoutall of this i have learnt how to make a blog, how to use publisher to form pages of documents, how to analyse and organize myphotos a bitmore and how to textually analyse other magazines, take the information i can learn from thema dn finally apply them to my own product.

contents page!!

can you please comment on what u think of this contents page please!!

week three review

i had to change my font as the restrictions placed onto the college network forbade me to using this font
i have completed my contents page and will upload shortly
toher than this i am on task :)

FINISHED FRONT COVER