Brand identity and ideology of Q Magazine

Q Magazine values a variety of music, such as rock and pop. When it was first created, its creator even made this clear when they said "Magazines tend to bracket people by taste, or what they assume that taste to be. This is a magazine that doesn't." As can clearly be seen from the front covers, it covers a variety. There are famous artists from multiple genres. They value their audience and want to be a magazine for all.  Q believes that all music is important and that everyone should be able to find out about that music in one place rather than just sticking with one genre or style or having to purchase multiple magazines. The magazine has a specific colour scheme, using largely red, black and white - although other colours are used. This is because they feel that they should be recognisable as Q and they make their brand easy to recognise. The masthead is always located in the same place, and the colours rarely deviate. This means that they have a house style and that allows Q to be recognised by the way their front covers, contents pages and article pages look. It is consistent and it look professional - as opposed to each page and issue using different colours and fonts, which would too childish for the audience that Q are aiming themselves at. In addition, it is not designed to be particularly specific to a specific genre (the house style and masthead). It's designed to be general to allow it to work with a variety of styles and genres in music - as that is the intention of the magazine as a whole. 

Background: Q Magazine was released in 1986, which is when the above quote from the creator (not the specific publisher, probably the first editor) was made. This shows that they have kept their values since the magazine was first published - therefore 30 years. In turn, this shows that they are very committed to sticking to their values and beliefs that they have had right since the start. 

Moodboard

Masthead Ideas for Music Magazine

These are my masthead designs for the M4U music magazine. I particularly like the masthead on Row 4, third across. This is because this masthead seems different compared to the other mastheads, with the text being different lengths. I do however feel that a different, brighter and more clear colour could be used to allow the magazine to stand out more.

Below is a list of the fonts that have been used for the mastheads.

Fonts (l-r)
Row 1:
1 - Lucida Grande
2 - Lifestyle M54
3 - Kannada MN

Row 2:
1 - Euphemia UCAS
2 - Blackout
3 - AppleGothic

Row 3:
1 - Ingrata Regular
2 - Prototype
3 - Kakawate Font

Row 4:
1 - Pocket Thrilled FP
2 - The Outbox St
3 - Stentiga

Later addition to Mastheads (03/17):

Music magazine name ideas and introduction

I haven't specifically chosen a genre, it part due to my own interests and the fact that there will be people out there who like to have multiple interests - or maybe specifically in artists. As in, an artist may start with genre and then their style changes over the years - e.g, they may have started with rock and as time progressed their music gets more into the pop genre or vice versa. This means that people with a variety of tastes in music or who like an artist who has changed will be able to just have one magazine. In addition, this means that the magazine will cater for a much wider audience.

Name possibilities

• Music4U
• M4U
• Variety Music Now
• MaxMusix
• MaxMusic

Contents page for school magazine

Music Magazine Analysis

Contents page conventions

• Contents pages exist to tell you what is in a magazine. They provide the page numbers of where different articles are located in the magazine.
• They are based on a grid structure and rulers are used to line them up correctly.
• They are made of 1 or 2 columns, and these will have subheadings for each column.
• Numbers are used to locate where different things in the magazine are located, these are the page numbers.
• There may also be photos of content with captions which are used to engage the audience more. If the photo is large, the more important it is to the issue of the magazine.
• Articles and features use larger, bolder text. 
• Underneath each article or feature name is a blurb which gives a small amount of information on what the article or feature is about.
• There may also be an editors letter or a section with information on the magazine subscription.