Music Magazine Contents Research

Here is a contents page from the music magazine Q. Once again the colour scheme from the cover page is continued onto the contents page. At the top of the page the name of the magazine is displayed inside a long red banner going across the page. This is only half of a double page spread. Down the left hand side of the page is all of the articles that were featured on the cover. They will have placed the articles which were featured on the cover on the left hand side of the page as that is the first page that people turn to and it is most likely that the reason people have bought that magazine is because of the stories on the cover. Although there is no date on the magazine I think it will be from autumn 2009 due to one of the main features being the Beatles and Autumn 2009 was the release of the remastered versions of their albums. Also on the page is 3 images of 3 different features in the magazine. These images must be on the cover of the magazine as there is no text to tell you about the article it is just an image with the page number in big bold lettering displayed in the corner. Quite often Q has a double page spread for the contents page this would normally be used for a special issue, this shows that this issue won't have included any articles that were big events in the music industry or that it was likely to have been brought out after summer as normally a bigger issue is released for summer.

Here is a double page contents page from the British music magazine Q. It has a list of articles on both pages and also a selection of pictures in the centre showing images of what those specific articles are about. I think the images featured in the middle would be what was featured on the magazine cover. The colour scheme is the same again on this double contents page, red, white and black. The red is used to highlight the title at the top of the page, a red banner goes across the double page spread and features the page title in black lettering 'Contents' and then to the right in white lettering is the issue number. The use of this colour scheme in every issue gives a sense of continuity showing the reader that they can expect the same continuous standard of writing etc within every issue.
The articles featured on either side of the pages have page numbers next to them, in the size font as the name of the article, the difference with the images is that they have much larger sized numbers on them normally in the corner of the image, this will have been used to make them stand out as they have been placed on such a large image. The use of the numbers on each of the images and articles is the help the reader find the article they want with ease. This issue of the magazine must have been something like a summer issue due to the fact that it has a double page for the contents page.



This is a contents page from the British music magazine NME. The main feature on this page is a large picture in the center of Oasis and underneath is a brief description about their tour. However there is no page number on the article so therefore this is not the main feature of the magazine. Other articles in this issue are featured on the right hand side of the page, if the article was featured as a cover line it is accompanied by a red arrow. This helps the reader find an article that they were attracted to on the cover which makes it much easier to be able to navigate through the magazine. All other articles in the magazine have a number beside them so the reader can easily find what page the article they want to read is on. NME also continue their colour scheme from the cover page onto the contents page. NME use the same colour scheme that Q magazine uses of red, black & white. I think that these colours are used often as when they are used together they are eye catching and can easily grab someones attention.

Here is a contents page from the American music magazine Vibe. The main image on the page is of Kanye West. This is because for the cover of this magazine Kanye was on the front. It has kept the same colours that were used for the cover and continued them onto the contents page. For information about the image there is a small description in the bottom right hand corner of the page, the information given is about who the image is of and where it was taken and who by. The image has also been edited by changing the colour to match the background colour of the page. Although there isn't many bright colours on this page Kanye is wearing a bright red heart, this makes sure that your attention is not taken away from the main appeal of this issue of the magazine.
The articles that are featured in the magazine are displayed down the right hand side of the page. They are all displayed in quite elegant writing this is probably to the fact that Kanye is dressed in a suit and this keeps a smart theme running through the magazine. All of the articles are accompanied with page numbers, this makes it much easier for the reader to navigate through the magazine and find what they want. The two different sections in the magazine are Features and Fashion both of which are displayed in bold lettering this is to separate the articles and help guide the reader to find what they are interested in.