Magazine Research- Contents Page

Magazine Research - Contents Page Analysis

In this part of the research, I will research magazine content pages around the music industry. The main benefit I will gain from this is that I can take idea's from other magazines and use them in my very own contents page for my magazine, this will help me to develop my ideas as well as co-orporate the existing products and showcase them in my own magazine. By looking at magazines from different genres of music it will help me to compare and see how the conventions in other genre music magzines could also be contributed in my magazine, which is an urban magazine.

This contents page is for the well known alternative/rock genre magazine "Kerrang" which features quite a few artists and bands on the contents which would appeal to a broad range of this genre loving audience. However, this is different to a standered 'Vibe' contents page, as they normally feature only one image of an artist to appeal to the fans. This makes the contents page very limited in appose to the amount images on the front of Kerrang's magazines contents page. The idea of having a handful of images displayed on the contents page I got from researching rock magazines as they tend to utilize a lot of different images that tie in with the genre but also relate to the contents page inside stories.The reason I decided to incorporate the variety of images on my contents page was beacuse it was interested to look at and it helps the readers to navigate which image is releveant to each inside story because the images are coded with a number that the story relates with. Also the research did help me understand how colour coding the number of the page and the image on the contents page would help the readers to identify which image on the contents page would go with each inside story in the magazine. The text on the side, displays what page each interest is on, as well as the images which have a number on underneath allowing the audience to refer to the number as a feature inside the magazine. The text is easy to read, not too much colour or fonts and clearly indicating where to navigate.

The 'Kerrang' magazine is a weekly issue. The picture editor has done a great job of composition and I like the fact that the main story image is the biggest on the page, with the smaller stories image around it, this is another idea that I thought would work well on my music magazine so that the title stands out and is quickly recognized by the weekly reader of my VYBZ magazine. The weight of the text on the image caption is heavier on the band names and on the description the weight of the text is lighter, this shows the importance of the band name, than the description because first they have to attract the audience to the name and if they are interested they will look at the description. The contents page colour scheme is very bland. It stinks to grey, black and yellow which is done for simplicity, the designer obviously didn't want to make the page too colourful which would result in detracting the audiences attention. Although, the hint of yellow that is used injects a bit of fun onto the page. The use of bright colours like yellow, fusica pink and electric green are colours that I have used on my contents page because throughtout my research magazines use bright colours to instruct the reader of where to go next. The research that I gathered from the Kerrang magazine positively impacted on the style of my music magazine contents page and made me realise, just how important it is to embody the conventions within a contents page.

This is the contents page from the R&B/Rap magazine "Vibe" which feature's the singer "Kayne West". I have been focusing on the magazine "Vibe" as I find that the qualities it provides would attract my audience. This contents page features the well known rapper Kanye West with a hand across his chest with red heart, this pose is sexually appealingto the audience and the fact that the heart is red amoungst the greyish tone, on the page makes it stand out. The simplistic style of the contents page makes it even more appealing as it is ready to navigate. The colour of the font is also dull and simplistic which is dull but ties in with the theme that is trying to be portrayed. Everything is well placed and it looks like a magazine that appaels a lot to the desired audience which would be young males and females who listen to mainstream RnB. Although this edition seems more for the female audience as it features fashionarticles which not many males will be interested in, and the image used is gaze theory for women.

For my Contents Page

For the contents page in my magazine, I will incorporate the ideas from the three different magazine contents pages that I have researched. This will help me to stick to existing products out there as well as make it my own, giving it that unique touch that will make any Hip Hop lover want to purchase my magazine because of the unique qualities. Such as the use of bright, shocking and vibrant colours that help to draw the attention of the target audience, bold black font to straight away give out to the audience that this is a contents page.

The research of Vibe magazine gave me an idea to adopt the big V in the background to my own work. However i will change the appearance of the V to make it more creative and have a different look then the one displayed on the Vibe magazine. My reasons why I want to and did use the big V was because it shows the consistentcy of the first letter of the magazine title. It also would be catchy to current readers as well as people who don't and wouldn't read a hip hop magazine, but the fact that they would see the V and know immediatly that it is part of the Vybz magazine brand. The layout of the word contents is interesting and I also applied this to my contenst page because I love the way it looks on the page, its different and not often seen. The research has helped to get an insight at not only my music genre layout of a contents page but also others which has helped me in a way mix both of the conventions from two different genres to make my final contents page edgy and different but at the same time displaying all of the aspects needed for it to be classed as a contents page.

The use of multiple images I will intergrate on my contents page like the Kerrang magazine and put numbers underneath so you know which page this story will be featured on. This helps the reader understand which image goes with each inside story as well as giving colour to the contents page. My double page spread story image will be the biggest so that my audience know that it is the main story featured in this issue. I would like to use this composition of the contents page because it is not often used in Hip Hop magazines and I want my magazine to be different as well as fit the codes and conventions.

My contents page will also have features and the numbers will be a different colour to the description so that the readers will be able to distinguish which is for navigating and which is for more information and so that the text stands out to the reader. I would also like the title of the feature to have a heavier weight than the description, this will help the readers again focus on what is to skim look at and which helps navigate.