GQ Magazine

About GQ

An American international monthly men's magazine based in New York City and founded in 1931. The publication focuses on fashion, style, and culture for men, though articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, celebrities' sports, technology, and books are also featured.

This magazine creates a far less hypersexualised, unrealistic representation of male celebrities in comparison to Men's Health with the subject fully dressed and pictured in mid-shots and headshots to create a more personal and intimate atmosphere. This magazine doesn't isolate its readers and instead allows them to feel part of the culture its created. As well as this, it has a far more diverse range of models and the main cover image is never too similar as to make the editions feel 'samey'. GQ also covers political issues and provides more intellectual and stimulating content and is therefore more so targeted towards the upper end of my target demographic of 20-25 years.

Features:

-High quality imagery

-Minimalistic cover

-Complimentary but simple colour palette

-Celebrity focus

Therefore, I aim to create a mixture of more playful content for the younger end of the brief while including interesting and mature content to provide topics for all readers.

THE WEBSITE

On first opening the website, there is a clean layout with a lot of negative space between colourful, quirky imagery. The site is easily navigated with 7 titled links in the top left hand corner which take you to the thing you're interested in and there are a mixture of well-known famous faces and up-and-coming stars. None of the imagery is too similar but they successfully link their web page to the way they design their magazines with co-ordinating content.

The advertisements do not vary and throughout the page they appear to solely display Ferrari's advert. It is classy, elegant and appeals to a middle market aspirational audience such as my own as they wish to pursue a career that will lead them to the luxury lifestyle they see in their reading materials. Despite celebrating their 60th anniversary, GQ have managed to create a modern and successful magazine.

This element of the website I find particularly relevant to my research and how I will ultimately construct my own website. This is an example of cross media convergence, promoting their paper copies on their website, not straying from their usual design and layout. Differing from Men's Health, GQ feature a wider range of celebrities that draw in consumers from all backgrounds. For example, John Boyega speaks to the Star Wars community whereas Ben Stokes appeals to cricket lovers.

There are multiple sub-sections that have a focus on specific things GQ know their target audience enjoy such as this section on fashion. There are a wide range of articles which caters to a vast audience with more mainstream figures such as Daniel Craig and more niche stories such as their 'neo-vintage collaboration' for readers with specific interests.