Analysing Contents Pages

By Nicole Holder

From first glance, this contents page makes me want to turn over because it is seems too cluttered and it doesn’t appeal to the eye as a contents page. A contents page is supposed to clearly direct you to where you want to go and tell you a little bit about what is on each page; this magazine’s contents page does this in an unconventional way because the page is not clear but it is crowded, it does direct you to where you want to go but not with ease. In other words If there was nothing stating that it was a contents I would have thought that this was a picture gallery or just a cluttered magazine page.

At second glance the features in the sidebar are quite organised because they are kept beside a margin, also, the headline of the sidebar is highlighted yellow in a contrasting colour to the font colour which is black while all the sub-headings are highlighted in the same manner but the highlight colour is black and the font is yellow. The colours used in the layout are black and yellow, these colours are used to catch the reader’s attention and also to organise headings and sub-headings e.g. the main contents heading is highlighted black and the font is yellow, the heading of the features column is highlighted yellow while the font is black. The side bar and the pictures are all set out in grids using margins which could be seen as organisation. There is big paragraph at the top of the contents page which is unconventional and it looks out of place.

This content page’s layout is clear and much easier to read the reason for this is that this contents page uses only one column/margin. There is a heading that indicates that it is a magazine about icon actors and actresses which leads me to believe that the target audience are people who are in their 40s. The colours used are brown, Red, black and white this colours are used slightly in the same way as the first contents page is used. All the sub-headings and page numbers are red while the other text is black which is organised.

There is a lot of white space which is used efficiently because it gives the contents page an element of simplicity and sophistication as does the image, because it is in black and white and the woman is posing in a sophisticated manner.

Although there is a lot of white space used in this contents page, the page is still balanced because the image anchors the listed text.

This contents page looks as if it is for a pop magazine as there is a famous pop singer (Katy Perry) in the centre. The fact that Katy Perry is the main image when the contents page is supposed to be dedicated to navigating the reader to certain pages, shows that this magazine is one of great recognition and importance.

In my opinion this contents page does not do its job as I would not have known it was a contents page if I hadn’t looked at the top of the page. Also this magazine does not make the fact that this is a contents page known as part of the main image is blocking the one thing that is supposed to catch the readers eye and let them know that this is in fact a contents page.

The masthead for this page is in a bold font however I believe it is there for aesthetic purposes, to compliment the picture and to help act as an anchor for the surrounding text. I also believe that the text is there to compliment the image because the font is a bubble font which aesthetically similar to the bubbled mushroom Katy Perry is holding. The picture is very cute and gives off a soft ‘girly’ look as does the title as it is not harsh.

A range of fonts and font sizes are used as well as colours even tough a minimal amount of text is used. There are 4 small paragraphs with short, bold titles which belong to each paragraph. The background colour is a neutral and soft cream which compliments the image and the text it could also connote to innocence and purity which the main image brings an element of.

The first thing that strikes me about this contents page is the main image, there is a rap artist holding up a collection of chains he is wearing around his neck, this immediately indicates what genre this magazine is, which is rap and/or R’n’B, I was able to indicate this due to the iconography of the man’s pose, usually in Rap and R’n’B magazines you would see rap artists showing off their jewellery in a menacing way.

The contents page’s masthead is broken up into 3 lines, probably to break the mould of the usual convention of having the masthead in a simple vertical line. The idea for the masthead being like this was probably also to show some kind of rebellion which would compliment the main image as the image most rappers attempt to ‘’pull-off’’ is one of rebellion.

This contents page consists of one column and this column is split into 2 lists innovatively by the image, one for ‘features’ and one ‘Fasbion’.

The background of this contents page is Burgundy which fades into a dark red, this colour could have been used to connote danger, which compliments the pose the rapper has.

I think that the features and layout of this contents page is more effective than the first one because there is slightly more of a focus on the text describing the contents and the masthead can be seen, also the masthead is arranged in such a way that the audience would have to stare in order to untangle the way the masthead is arranged.