Music Magazine Contents Page Research

After I had analysed the music magazine front covers that I had found, I then had the task to find, and analyse some existing music magazine contents pages. These are the ones that I found.

This is the contents page for the popular magazine "NME". For the colour scheme, they have continued this from the front page, and from the measthead, which creates a house style contents page. They have left no spare room on this, which is a positive because it shows that they have used the space effectively, and I hope to do this for my contents page, when I come round to designing it. The colour scheme is easy to see, and they are contrasting colours, which allows the text to stand out more easily, and be in the audience's face. They have used two images of the band "Oasis", and this links with the passage of text that is underneath it. Again, I hope to do this in my contents page. They have used headings above each of the stories that are included in the magazine, this makes it easier to find the story that the audience may be interested in. The arrows that are next to the stories are good because they allow the audience to see that they are of a greater importance than the rest of the stories on the page. They have used an advertisement across the bottom of a deal that they are currently doing, which promotes the magazine. A unique feature that has been used in this contents page is the band index. This allows the audience to see what bands are being displayed in this magazine, which speeds up the time to look for a band. I have not seen this in any other magazine, so if I create something that I wanted to be unique, I may consider using this feature.

For this contents page, the colour scheme is very dull, which allows the main image to subtly stand out. This means that the main image jumps out to the audience. The way he is looking straight at the camera is quite domineering, which is quite a masculin trait, and the way that he is looking directly down the camera in a direct mode of address makes him seem powerful and makes the audience seem inferior to him. The way that the cover lines go around the image, and over the top, is a good mix because it shows good use of the image as the main feature and a sub-feature. The use of the white text on the red background stands out, which makes it clear to the audience what they are looking at. For this contents page, it seems as though they have left quite a lot of room that is not taken up, which is unusual in a magazine. The "V" in the darker colour of red that is behind the image, is a subtle reminder to the reader that the magazine cover is from vibe, which is a common feature on all vibe contents pages.

In this contents page, you can tell that this is from the popular magzine "Vibe", due to the subtle V in the background behind the image. As well as the previous contents page, there seems to be quite a lot of room left compared to the other magazine covers that I am analysing. With the image, similar to the previous one, he is looking firectly down the camera, in a direct mode of address. This makes the audience feel inferior towards him, and it also makes him look like he is looking directly at the audience. The colour scheme that is used for the contents page comes directly from the image, which represents a feature of contunuity being used throughout this page, amongst the image, background and colour of font. There is only one other colour in this contents page, the red in the hand, that is positioned over his heart. This is quite ironic because it is positioned directly over his heart, and the fact that it is red symbolises love, which stereotypically would not be associated with a man.

For this magazine contents, the main image, as well as all of the previous contents, are very effective. All four of the band are looking at the camera, which again, makes us feel that they are looking directly at the camera. The colour scheme for this magazine, comes mainly from the masthead of this magazine, which is quite simply, "Q" with a red background, which is where the red on this contents page comes from. With this magazine, there is not much space left at all, it has all been used up effectively, which is common on most magazines, however it makes it look like there is a lot of writing on the contents page where there is actually not, which may put the reader off, and not read all of the magazine. The cover lines are places along the left hand side of the contents page, which is different to most of the other contents pages. When I am designing my contents page, I will have to keep this in mind, whether I would want to put the cover lines on the left or on the right.