‘Q’ Magazine

Name: Jonathan SheehanCandidate Number: 2127Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic SchoolCenter Number: 64135

OCR Media Studies – AS Level

Unit G321: Advanced Portfolio

My chosen magazine of inspiration has a very bland contents page with the bare minimum of information. They have done this for a simplistic effect however for my main task I want an in-depth contents page. I decided to choose another magazine as my inspiration as well as CLASH and this was ‘Q’ because of the interesting detailed features they include. So I have analysed a double page spread and contents page around this magazine instead.

Contents Page – Analysis

Double Page Spread Analysis – Lana Del Rey

The questions asked to the band have their own section highlighting their importance and that they are interesting. Each question involves every band member and contains forms of humour. Involving the actual person(s) being interviewed is a great way to create a relationship with the readers.

The page contains other pictures of relevant information for example what he band have been eating which breaks up the repetitive text and gives the reader synergy.

The text is all set on one page which is a feature that I will not be using. I prefer CLASHs layout of the small text in the corner with a more typewriter font with the white background over the picture. That is what I will use in my double page spread.

The image has a green filter on it which symbolises that the band is quite muggy and boisterous, this could be the look that they are going for. Just like the last image they have been given the whole page highlighting their importance.

The band members in the image give the look as if they do not care about anything, holding their middle finger up and the smashed plates coke cans represent this clearly.

There is information/promotion in the title showing that they are trying to cram every piece of information into the page as possible, not leaving blank spaces can make the reader think that the page is more interesting and vibrant.

The title is extremely large and bold which I like, it shows the importance of the band members and it highlights directly that the page is about them and them only.

The font style is in the usual basic times new roman which does not specially symbolise anything major. However the highlighted red sections are a great way to show important sub titles.

Contents:

• The first style I would like to use from ‘Q’ magazine is the way the editor has kept the colour scheme with the number icons and how they are in chronological order. I would like to keep in my magazine the consistency that ‘Q’ has used with the story and the detail underneath as it looks professional and gives the right amount of detail away to the reader in order to interest them.

• Secondly I like how there is a large image towards the top right of the page and how it takes up a large quantity of the page. This is obviously due to the fact that the main story is about them (Oasis), however it breaks up the repetition of writing and is aesthetically pleasing.

• The last feature that I am going to copy from ‘Q’ is how they have used in every copy a ‘Every Month’ section, which every moth has the same stories. This is good as it shows a bit of repetition for the reader, so that every month a part of the magazine is familiar to them and not completely new every time.

Double Page Spread:

• The biggest feature I am most fond of is the simplistic approach ‘Q’ have undertaken with their main image, the close up holds many hidden meanings and I like how this portrays different feelings to different readers. The colour scheme and make up effects used are very professional and show off every feature that Lana has.

• My second feature that I will be using is the font style. I have motioned before about how I would like to use a typewriter style font from my chosen magazine of inspiration ‘CLASH’ but now that I have seen it in ‘Q’ as well, I can see that it is a perfect and professional font to use.

• The last feature I would like to use is a very large drop capital. This has been used with the start of the sentence and it quite apparent. The large ‘S’ taking up a lot of the room confirms that the person in the double page spread has a lot to say about them and that they are of importance because the feature has been used on them.