This front cover is from Q magazine a music magazine that is published monthly in the United Kingdom.

Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were appalled by the current music magazines in circulation, Ellen and Hepworth felt these magazines were ignoring a older generation buyers who were buying CD's (at the time still a new technology). Q was first published in 1986, doing its up most to sett itself apart from the other music magazines by having a monthly instead of weekly production this leading to much higher standards of photography and printing. In the early years, the magazine was sub-titled "The modern guide to music and more". Originally it was to be called Cue a reference to the cueing of a record). Reasons, cited in Q's 200th edition, is that a single-letter title would be more prominent on newsstands.

The first thing that is noticeable on this front cover is the large picture of a topless Lily Allen posing with two black leopards, this straight away shows the notability of the magazine as they have been able to persuade a 'A list' pop star to pose topless with dangerous leopards on the front cover for the whole world to see, this could also be seen as a bit of a cheat by the publishers because by putting a scantily clad women on their front cover, this could possible attract all types of different buyer.

Apart from the main striking image there are no other images on the front cover just the headline and a few cover lines, these over lap and under lap the main image for example Lily Allen is placed in front of the Q magazine logo but behind the main headline one of the leopards is in front of the main headline, all these very little touches give the magazine front cover much more depth making it seem like you can look into the front cover instead of it being one flat boring image.The magazine logo is widely recognized because of the way it stands on the front cover there are many reasons why it does; firstly the fact that it is almost a quarter the size of the magazine cover makes it stand out because not many magazine leave so much space for there logo, secondly; it is one of the only red things on the front cover the only other things are three small cover lines and two very small forward slashes this make the logo jump out of the page because it is so bright and large.

I really like the simplistic approach taken by Q magazine as it makes the single image and ares of text stand out much more, i think i will use quite a simple approach in my work.