The Beginning

The beginning of media: Here I am going to look at the conventions of magazine covers to try to find out the general formula used when creating a cover of any magazine.

Q: In this magazine, they have decided to place the magazine logo in the top left hand corner with the main front cover image placed in the centre featuring an overlap on to the logo. On this cover, the logo is part of the magazine's brand and what will most likely sell it, other than the contents provided. It is bold and stands out well amongst other magazines. As Q is a well known magazine it is unsurprising that the logo is what may help sell it. Ask someone about Q magazine and they are more than likely to know what you're talking about. Here again is the importance of branding and making a logo bold and able to stand out "in the crowd."

The main headline is then placed over the image in fairly large font in order to stand out to the target audience. The importance of a main headline that stands out is great in regards to selling magazines: Any magazine that features their main headline in tiny squashed up writing is almost certainly not going to do as well as a magazine with a bold one.

At the top of the cover an explanation of what the magazine is all about is written across it; in this case it is: THE ESSENTIAL MUSIC GUIDE. In a similar fashion a brief aspect of the contents of this particular issue is written at the bottom in this case: All the Month's Albums, Gigs, Films & DVDs Reviewed & Rated.

Around the main cover image other images and headlines are placed, making sure that the target audience realises that the issue is not about one particular subject but that there are other features in the magazine that may stand out to someone interested in buying it. On this issue the main cover features are given as: On Tour With U2, Bloc Party and Made In Hell! In each case a short sentence reveals what that feature is about, for example Made In Hell: The 10 Craziest Rock Couples; this tells us that that feature will be detailing a selection of what the magazine considers to be the 10 craziest rock couples. This information is useful on a cover as the cover is what will sell a magazine in most cases, and a cover with little information or anything that stands out is less likely to be sold than a magazine that does.