Cover Analysis - GQ

Even though this magazine isnt a music magazine i decided to do an analysis on it because i liked the style and feel of it.

The mast head is a very iconic magazine title GQ, the fact that the main photo is highly positioned over the logo adds emphasis to the size of the magazine, people still know the logo even with half of it missing, the unique conventional blue and red master head fits the whole colour scheme of the cover, including other binary opposite colours black and white. The cover can instantly be seen to be targeted at men due to the shot of Beyoncé on the front. She is only wearing a little blue crop top and small red pants, which go with the logo of GQ.  This image instantly grabs the attention of any male looking at the magazine rack because Beyoncé is such an iconic figure in the music industry, and she is very good looking. Because so much of her body is revealing this can make some of the audience believe there will be better photos inside the magazine and lure them into buying it. The sexual pose of Beyoncé instantly enters the male gaze and the fact she has limited clothes of and her figure is basically fully showing adds emphasis to this. The image is a very successful technique to luring people in.

The shot seems to be a low angle shot, as if she is looking down on the audience, this can suggest that because of her looks she can be over powering to the man which makes them want to buy the issue. This is something useful to think about.

The simplistic white background allows the main image to stand out significantly, which draws a lot of attention to the cover. The unique colour scheme is used in the cover lines to emphasis and show significance on certain names. For example this is down with Beyoncé, Kate Upton, Megan Fox and Mila Kunis. This affect catches the target audience’s eye a lot better because the colour will allow it to stand out from the rest of the text.

The use of fonts on the cover are good, the use of rhetorical questions on the front page can easily persuade the customer to buy it to see what really happened. The font used for the cover lines is bold and sharp, which compliments the sharp pixel image of Beyoncé. In the top left corner there is a cover line that starts with gentleman, this instantly suggests the target audience of the magazine, which compliments the photo used because both of them can lure a gentleman into purchasing this edition.