Compare the covers of two music magazines

Looking at the two music magazines, Q and Total Guitar, theyare both monthly and have quite a wide music range, there are lots of pointsthat can be analysed. The target audiences, although slightly different ingenre, are very similar in target age, both probably aiming at 20 onwards.

The presentational devices used in the magazines varies, forexample Total Guitars colours are plain black and white with splashes of strongneon colours too catch the attention of the reader, highlighting the yellowguitar in the central picture and neon pink too highlight articles. Although Qhas similar colours they do not come in small hints but are instead all overthe cover giving it a livelier look.

The cover of Q is made of two separate tabs, one covers justover half the page designed to hold the free CD (this is a good selling point),displaying title and featured articles but no photos, it does however feature aquote from the main article. The second cover has a large photo of U2 taking uppractically the whole page, this leaves no room for other photos and just a fewwords showing different artists featuring inside.

Total Guitar has a lot more photos there main one has beenedited to make the artist look like he has been stencilled on with spray paint,spray paint and graffiti is usually associated with vandalism giving the covera rebellious look. The other photos however are much smaller and boxed in, thisshows that they are not the main article. There is also a cut out of a guitaron the right of the cover, highlighting the products being reviewed inside.

Both main photos make the artists look serious or have anattitude, this could be to make them look cooler.

There is also the fonts shown on each cover both havedifferent sizes, colours, types etc., Total Guitar is all written in capitalsapart from the title. However Q is all written in capital letters and nearlyall in different fonts, bands and artists are written in one type of fontwhereas quotes are sort of scribbled on, this makes the quote look like it hasbeen hand written like it is personal to the artist.

I have learnt by looking at these two covers that differentfonts highlight artists etc. and by looking at the handwritten quotes and thestencilled picture it seems stylish to make things a bit messy and, notnecessarily misplaced, but look like they have been slapped on. It is also agood idea to put your main photo in front of the magazine title as for regularreaders it is easy to recognise the magazine anyway. Also using features like‘Europe’s best-selling guitar magazine’ is a good selling point and willencourage people to buy.