Q wins an award

Congratulations to Q and Love for winning a Maggie award each for magazine covers.

Showing the way that magazine design has become increasingly inventive over the years since just lobbing a half-naked woman on the front, Love won the fashion title for its naked Beth Ditto cover while Q took the overall prize for, erm, a half-naked Lily Allen.

Judging panel chairman Jim Bilton, a magazine industry veteran and managing partner of Wessenden Marketing, said: "A stunning image, strong cover lines with clear typography and an excellent 'greatest' list prominently highlighted all adds up to a winning cover creatively and commercially, producing one of the highest copy sales of the year.

"Lily wasn't a core artist for the Q readership and had heavy media coverage at the time. The solution – add panthers and a creative photo shoot – produced a truly memorable result which is our favourite cover this year."

The artist isn't really someone who Q readers want to read about so we got her to take her top off and all of a sudden, she's interesting to them.