Contents Page Analysis

The contents page of the magazine Q is quite simple and sticks to the basic colour scheme which helps attract the audiences attention to important titles and page numbers, this will help the audience easily navigate through the magazine as they can locate there areas of interest with ease. I will use this same technique on my contents page to ensure my magazine is easy to navigate.

The contents page contains only two images which is unusual, however the main image is linked to the main article which is important to this issue. The audience will see the image and be attracted to the article. I will use the technique of images but will use more than two to ensure readers are interested in multiple articles rather than just one.

One of the titles is in light grey font on a white background making it unnoticeable to the reader as the text is too similar to the background. For my contents page I will avoid using colours too similar to the background.

This contents page uses only one main image that drastically contrasts with the background due to opposing colours, drawing attention to the image, however the image is not labelled so if the reader is unaware of who the image is of, the image would be totally useless. To avoid this I will ensure that all my images are caption or layered by the title of the article they are linked to.

The titles of the articles are all in large font to draw the audience attention to them which is something I will use but this magazine also has quite lengthy descriptions of the articles rather than just brief sell lines. This is something I will probably not use as it takes up quite a lot of space and is unnecessary.

A quote from one of the articles is used on the page to help attract the audience to the features. I will use this on my contents page to help attract attention to articles of my own, using the same technique of keeping the quote and the source in different colours in keeping with the the colour scheme.

The subtitles on this contents page use black and white to make sure the text stand out and make it more likely the audience will notice and read the text, this will make it easier for the reader to navigate around the pages and is something I will do when designing my cover as it is important that the reader can find what they are interested in with ease.

This contents page contains an advertisement for a regular subscription to the magazine. It is on this page in the hope that readers will notice it when looking for articles and as if it is on this page it will not take up precious space on other pages used for features. If I do decide to include a subscription advertisement in my magazine I will put it on my contents page.

At the top of the page near the titles is the release date of the issue which is important in a magazine however not significant information for the reader, therefore it is in small font and out of the way. Within my magazine I will include a release date, keeping similar font size and positioning to that in this magazine.