Analysing contents pages essay

In today’s lesson, we looked at four different magazine contents pages and analysed each one in detail. The magazine contents pages we analysed are ‘Mix mag’, ‘we love pop’ ‘Q magazines’ and ‘NME’. All of them share some of the same features, but also differ in some way.

The first magazine contents page I am going to analyse is ‘We love pop’ and the contents pages it is similar too. This contents page target audience is mainly teenage girls who like pop music. The pictures on this page are varied; there are 6 main pictures, the biggest being the picture in the middle of Tulisa, with a strip of another 11 little pictures along the bottom, which are previews of posters that are included in the magazine. All the pictures are of celebrity singers of pop music, which is relevant to the target audience. ‘Q magazine’ pictures on their contents page is similar. The images are of musicians; there is one main picture on the right side of Adam Ant, just like the main picture of Tulisa on ‘We love pop’ magazine. The layout of the contents page is a little block with the title ‘Inside this month…’ and with 10 stories being shown with their page numbers. This layout is similar to ‘Q magazine’ as this contents page also has a box named ‘REGULARS” with a few stories mentioned with the page numbers. Also the layout of both magazines is similar because the contents are in numbered chorological order. This has been done to make it easy for the reader.

Another magazine that I analysed in today’s lesson is Mixmag. This magazine is a dance music and clubbing magazine with the target audience being young adults up to the age of around 30 whom like club and dance music. There is not much language that can be analysed because the majority of the contents page is filled up by big pictures, but at the bottom of the first page of the double page spread; there is information on ‘your free CD’. This is informing the reader on the artist of the CD and the songs that are included are listed on the right hand side. Where the page numbers are, are the title of the article and underneath are a brief explanation about each story. 

This is similar to the NME (New Music Express) magazine. On this contents page of the NME magazine, there are 8 pictures that vary in size all over the page, which indicates there is less space for text. The language used, are all quotes that come from the stories. For example, on page 6, under the picture of a musician playing the guitar, the quote is “Someone’s gonna have to go to the hospital” and is in capital letters which suggests it being an important quote in that article. Under the quote, there is smaller but bold font, which gives a few words about the article. For example “Howler visit everywhere on the NME tour.”  Both magazines also state the page numbers on the bottom corners of the images, and the actual contents and page numbers are not the main focuses on the page, the images are.

The only magazine contents page out of the four that have a logo is ‘We love pop!’ Their logo is ‘WE 'heart' POP!’ and is situated on the top right hand side of the page, next to the title. The rest of the magazine contents pages have the name of the magazine (Mixmag) along the top, such as ‘CONTENTS’ on Q magazine or ‘Inside this week’ for NME magazine. Fonts are also varied on some of the magazine contents pages. Especially NME, where the font is different for every story briefly mentioned. This could be to give variety and not make it look simple, but to also give the impression there is a reason for the font to be varied from section to section. Some of the language is bold, and some is italic.

When I make my own music magazine contents page, I will use this analysis to view how other magazines lay out, colour, place images and use language and put it into action for my own one. I will also use the analysis to see which features went well and which ones needed more improvement so I can reflect the good ideas onto my magazine.