Analysis of Contents Pages

Here is the Contents page of one magazine, which is NME. There are many different features to a contents pages, and they are sometimes like the cover, muddled and full of pictures/text.

Usually, the name of the magazine is placed at the top of the contents page which is the masthead, like this one on the left hand side. Also, there's the listings of what's going on in the magazine in this issue on the left and the right, and this magazine specifically has captions to cactorgorise each type of story. In this case these are; Studio News, Band Index, and News. These captions are in bold, which makes them stand out and lets the reader know which subject they are dealing with clearly. Also, at the right hand side, under THIS WEEK, which is written in white to stand out, all features of a contents page contain the date or month of the magazin that has been released.

There is also a main image that catches the attention on the contents page, and is usually the image of the main story thats featured that month. The picture is aquare, to make it stand out more, and blends in well with the layout.

The contents page also features promotional adverts, which are placed on the bottom of this specific page. This promotion is usually based around monthly suscriptions for the magazine, and yellow font has been used here to promote the suscription. The yellow font makes the writing bolder and adds a bit more colour to the actual colour scheme, which here seems to be black, red and green. The colour schemes all magazine pages are usually based around 3 colours, and then they have an extra colour to make the page look a little less organised. On this page, green circles have been added in the background, which blends well with the red and black. This also makes the page seem less boring. There is some aspects of red, but not too much, and that is the name of the magazine, and the writing on the band index. The band index on the contents page is added to make a summary of what's going to be featured, and makes it easier for the reader.

This contents page comes from the music magazine that is quite popular, Vibe. This magazine's contents page is a little different to the one from NME, as it has a much more modern colour scheme and theme. On first impressions, you would'nt think that this was a contents page for a magazine, you'd almost think that it was the contents page for a mainstream magazine filled with models because of the pictures on the sides. The pictures are again square, which again make the contents page neater and more organised. The pictures taken are all medium shots of black males, which indicates the ideology of black people in this magazine is more sophisticated then the usual stereotype of black music, which would be associated with rappers and guns ect. Instead of having lots of colours and page listings, this contents page has decided to look very minimal, the name featured again, but instead of being at the top, it is very small and is written at the bottom. The colours are again featuring red, black and tints of others, which does follow up on the seterotypical colours of music magazines. There is no sign of other listings, like competions or NME'S way of advertising, meaning this magazine must have enough money to fund themselves instead of advertising other competitions. The font used here is more sophisticated, almost like Times New Roman, which makes the magazine seem a bit more classy. From first glances, you do not beleive this is a music magazine based around black music, but the audience I think is for the black generation, or for people interested in R & B or Hiphop.

This magazine's contents page is very very diffferent to the ones above. This contents page seems much more comical and pleasing for the eye, instead of being smart and organised. The colour scheme used here is pinks, greens and purples, which all have connotations of the 60's being quite funky and groovy. The name of the magazine, the masthead, is again at the top, 'FUSED' but instead of being bold and standing out, it mingles in with the page, making the contents almost like a maze.

There is page listings, just like on the other two, but these are plainly written on a slant in bold, rather than boringly put down the side. I believe the audience for this contents page is people interested in more funky music, rather than mainstream.