Magazine Front Covers: Vogue and GQ
The Set Magazine Covers: Vogue and GQ
For this topic you must know two specific front covers in detail: British Vogue, July 2021, with education activist Malala Yousafzai photographed by Nick Knight, and British GQ, August 2019, with footballer Raheem Sterling photographed by Hunter & Gatti. In the exam you will be given a copy of one of these products and asked to analyse it directly, so you need to know exactly what is on the page — not just general theory about magazines.
Both covers are built from media language — the choices of image, colour, typography and layout that a producer selects and combines to build meaning. Both also construct a representation of their cover star that serves the magazine’s brand and target audience.
Vogue (July 2021): Malala Yousafzai, photographed by Nick Knight, captioned ‘Survivor, Activist, Legend’. GQ (August 2019): Raheem Sterling, photographed by Hunter & Gatti, main coverline ‘Guardian Angel: How Raheem Sterling saved football from itself’.
Vogue: Media Language and Composition
The VOGUE masthead uses the Didot font, a tall, sculpted, all-uppercase serif typeface the magazine has used since the 1950s. It sits centrally across the top of the cover, laid directly over Malala’s forehead, which anchors her immediately as a Vogue star. The limited colour palette — red, silver-grey, black and white — gives the cover a confident, high-end feel. The dominant red connotes celebration, power and strength; the silver-grey caption ‘Survivor, Activist, Legend’ is printed in the same colour as the masthead, linking Malala’s status directly to the brand.
The composition follows the rule of thirds and the Z-rule: the masthead at the top and Malala’s captions at the bottom frame the central image symmetrically. She is shot in a medium close-up with direct eye contact and a slight smile — a mode of address that is personal and confident, inviting the reader to admire her as a role model rather than simply look at her.
On the left, black uppercase headlines with italicised white subheadings advertise familiar Vogue territory: ‘LOVE AFTER LOCKDOWN’ and ‘THE SHAPE OF NOW’, using alliteration to sound authoritative. On the right, ‘Vogue’s Guide to Summer Beauty’ sits on the red background above Malala’s shoulder, reinforcing the idea that Vogue is the fashion ‘bible’. ‘FIGHTING TALK’ references an interview with model Jourdan Dunn and boxer Anthony Joshua — an unusual sports reference that broadens the magazine’s appeal under editor Edward Enninful.
Malala wears a dupatta, not a hijab. In the magazine’s interview she calls it ‘a cultural symbol for us Pashtuns’ and argues that traditional dress does not mean a woman is voiceless or oppressed.
GQ: Media Language and Composition
The GQ masthead sits in the conventional top-left position (the Z-rule), printed in gold to connote luxury and exclusivity. The colour palette of black, white, gold and orange creates cohesion and reinforces themes of sophistication and masculinity. Sterling is shot in a long shot, topless, wearing leather combat trousers — more high fashion than practical, signalling that GQ is a lifestyle magazine, not just a sports title.
Sterling makes direct eye contact with a relaxed, slightly downward gaze, a mode of address that positions him as someone to admire. His main coverline, ‘Guardian Angel: How Raheem Sterling saved football from itself’, is anchored by his tattoos: black wings suggest a protective, almost supernatural figure, while a cross signals his Christian faith. This framing constructs him as what Propp would call a heroic figure — a common convention for magazine cover stars.
Fashion advice (‘How to wear a broken suit’, ‘Why it’s finally OK to own a belt bag’) sits alongside serious politics (‘Westminster has become a living nightmare. Andy Burnham’s Manchester masterplan’) and celebrity gossip (‘GQ Heroes: All the sizzle’, promising exclusive content). Mixing fashion, sport, politics and celebrity in one cover shows how men’s lifestyle magazines blend genres to widen their appeal to an ABC1 male readership.
Representation and Context: Vogue
Featuring a Muslim woman in a headscarf is historically rare for Vogue. Naomi Campbell first appeared on the cover of British Vogue in December 1987, but according to The Guardian, between the August 2002 issue (with Campbell as cover star) and 2014, 146 covers were published and not one featured a Black model. Edward Enninful, appointed editor in December 2017 as the magazine’s first Black and first male editor, has since championed diversity of race, age, size and gender on Vogue’s covers, including the April 2018 issue that featured the first hijab-wearing model.
The July 2021 issue was published as British and American troops withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban regained control of the country. Malala, recognised globally as an education activist opposed to the Taliban, used the platform to raise concerns about the safety and rights of Afghan women and girls, including in a Newsnight interview in August 2021, as the withdrawal was completed.
The connotation of red as celebration, combined with the ‘activist’ caption, links her fashion-magazine appearance to this real political moment, even though the cover makes no direct reference to Afghanistan.
Representation and Context: GQ
A 2018 Guardian study found that of 214 covers published by the UK’s 19 bestselling glossy magazines in 2017, only 20 (9.3%) featured a person of colour, despite 13.7% of the UK population being BAME. Sterling, who is British Jamaican, is presented on the GQ cover as a role model whose work ethic readers can aspire to, even if his footballing talent is out of reach. In December 2018 Sterling used social media to expose racist media coverage that treated his Black teammates differently from white teammates for buying similar houses — the same week a Tottenham fan was arrested for racially abusing a player. This context underpins his ‘Guardian Angel’ framing: Gary Lineker has called him ‘perhaps the most influential player in the game’ off the pitch.
Sterling’s topless, muscular pose also reflects ideas about masculinity. Journalist Mark Simpson coined the term ‘metrosexual’ in 1994 and ‘spornosexual’ in 2014 to describe men who are increasingly image- and body-focused. Although Sterling is a footballer, the emphasis on his physique on the cover fits this body-conscious, consumerist model of modern masculinity that GQ sells to its readers.
Vogue (2021): 191,000 average monthly print circulation, 5.3 million digital subscriptions, 14.3 million social media followers. GQ: 212,000 monthly print readership, over 2 million online unique users, over 2 million social media followers.
Industry Facts You Must Know
Both titles are produced by Condé Nast and rely heavily on advertising revenue. Vogue targets ABC1 women, traditionally aged 30–45 but broadened under Enninful, who spend around £8,000 a year on fashion and over £1,000 a year on cosmetics. GQ, launched in 1931 as Gentleman’s Quarterly and rebranded GQ in 1967, targets ABC1 men aged 20–44: 88% of its readers say they have bought or plan to buy products seen in the magazine, and 93% own designer fashion. These figures explain why both covers use luxury signifiers — jewellery, fashion, colour palettes associated with wealth — to appeal to advertisers as much as readers.