AS Research and Planning: Q Magazine Contents Page Analysis

I have chosen to analyse the contents page of monthly music magazine Q, issue number 292. This magazine attracts a niche market of predominantly males between the ages of eighteen to forty. It can also appeal to women, but not in the same magnitude as men.

The first page of the contents contains a fairly simple layout. It has a masthead, main image, contents and another small image. The main image is of cover star and magazine dedicated John Lennon. The image, like the cover image, is taken in black and white. This denotes grieving and time passing. It also has further connotations with the age of the photograph. It is a mid-shot to long-shot of him and he is sitting on a rocking chair. This is interesting as we typically associate rocking chairs with elderly people, which in this photo seems ironic as he would be elderly if he was still alive. He has a disturbing look on his face, solemn and mysterious. This adds weight to the black and white theme, the image looks almost spooky. Further juxtaposition includes the connotations associated with the rocking chair and the youth of Lennon when the photo was taken.

The masthead is situated near the top of the page on a red strip. The red psychologically symbolises passion, love, violence and war. The logo Q is written in white, like it is on the front cover. The masthead contains the word Contents. The letters are spaced out, creating a sophisticated effect. The font here is black. Both the white and the black work well against the red to create effective contrasting. It is easy to read and the white and red appear brighter against each other.

The actual contents appear to be set in an Angsana New style font and are black against the white background. To stay with the theme of this issue's magazine, a small box of text is situated first in the contents list. This box is a deep red colour, again having connotations with passion and violence, with the reiterating the fact the magazine is focusing on John Lennon. The text is white, so it contrasts effectively with the deep red. The o in Lennon and the 0 in 70th are jioned together with a small bendy line and are both in a black font. This is a signifier for a symbol of Lennon's famous round glasses. The magazine has cleverly incorporated semiotics into this small logo for clever relevance’s. The contents are listed downward to the left hand side of the first page. The text here is all written in a black font, apart from a small piece of text below John Lennon's piece on the contents. The effect is adding emphasis onto this part of the content features and also relates well to the colour conventions of the magazine. The content features are also underlined with a red line, adding colour to an otherwise plain page.

The smaller image is situated in the bottom left hand corner of the page and depicts an interview layout with a large bolded number (the content number). This is basically an advertisement on the contents page for something inside the magazine. They decided to use images to show some of the contents, which appeals to those who prefer to look at images rather than read text.

The second page of the content page contains six small images, a masthead and contents. The contents have alternated sides, this time situated on the right hand side of the page. They are of the same colour convention, font and size of the previous page. The masthead is the same as the previous page as well, but this time provides the issue number and is written in a white font. The white looks brighter contrasted against the vibrancy of the red, so it is easy to read and bold.

The six images depict (clockwise from top right hand corner): four different variations of the magazine cover which are available to collect, an image of a man from a band called Foals holding bloody pigs head to his face whilst against a dark background, a photo of a woman playing a guitar representing the review section, an image of an interview with The Ting Tings inside the magazine, a double page spread about a band called Sleigh Bells and finally an image of band Gorillaz standing on a ship.