Q sets to work on a dark Sin City-inspired creation, transforming the Geordie lass into a rock ‘n’ roll heroine, fit for the big screen. Opening doors to the pop culture icon of 2009, this is Cheryl Cole as you’ve never seen her before. She is portrayed as a smashing sex symbol, clothing style icon and role model. The fact that she was in Britain’s biggest girl band since the Spice Girls, a majority of young teenage girls might like her music and buy the magazine seeing that Cheryl Cole is the most fashion forward and stylish female of today. Therefore, they idolise her accomplishments such as she’s a judge on the X Factor, the UK’s largest talent show. Also, males who are mainly 18 years old and over may as well find her very attractive considering FHM readers voted her as the hottest woman of 2010, so they are expected to buy the magazine. These groups of people are drawn to the magazine because Q has used a well-known celebrity on the front page that attracts major attention as it is.
The model’s (Cheryl Cole) costume is exposed on her shoulders and left hand that is raised up towards the check. She is wearing a black leather jacket made out of tough reptile like skin, suppose of making a fashion statement of biker jackets at the same time supporting the rock ‘n’ roll heroine theme. Also, she’s wearing a silver shark tooth ring on her little finger as a prop for use in furthering the plot of a photo shoot. She is not only wearing it for fashion but she creates sex appeal by slightly sticking her tongue on the tip of it. The main image is shot close up; this shot magnifies the object and shows the importance of things such as the facial expression while everything else is just a blur in the background.
The setting works over the image with rain which can be a sexual connotation as some men think women look good when they are drenched wet and long-haired because it’s sexy just like in the image on the front cover. The lighting is low-key meaning that it is quite shadowy because of the rain that can relate to darkness together with the character’s dark hair and costume. Looking at her non-verbal communication, her gaze is direct connoting confidence that she knows she’s being photographed by looking at the camera. Her eye make-up is smudged to look as if she has actually been in the rain.
The magazine’s selling line is a short, sharp description of the title’s main marketing point placed at the very top allowing the audience to pick up on the type of the magazine, ‘THE UK’S BIGGEST MUSIC MAGAZINE’ tells me it looks at many different styles of music in order to reach a wide range of music fans. The name of the magazine (Q Magazine) is displayed in a specific typeface to be very recognisable and unique. Therefore, the masthead is always found on the top left hand side and on this magazine it is fully displayed covering part of the model’s head.
It also features coverlines that attract an audience to the contents of the magazine without drawing too much attention from the main image. The magazine includes a main coverline found at the bottom section of the magazine. The font size is different in each layer however the main coverline (Cheryl Cole) is printed in white capital letters like the magazine’s masthead. Its purpose is to display and promote the main featured article in the magazine. This stands out against the black background with the use of red as well. Red is used on the masthead, coverlines, main coverline and main image upon the model’s lips as a sense of importance and attention.
Every magazine must feature a bar code with the price and dateline. In this case, Q Magazine is published monthly so note that a monthly magazine usually hits the news-stands the month before the cover date. Furthermore, on the front cover there is a puff that contains information to attract audiences, ‘the untold story & the unseen pics’ about ‘John Lennon’ who is in fact a member of The Beatles. His name is printed in white capital letters just like the main coverline to show he is also part of the main featured article in the magazine.
