contents page

Research of Contents Pages in Indie Music Magazines

Here is contents page analysis no.1

The layout of the page is organised, everything is set into columns, split into sections, making it easier for the reader to find the information they want. This allows you to identify specific articles and their page number quickly and easily, for example if you're looking for a specific article about a specific band you can look to the left of the page and they are all laid out there for you to browse and quickly find the one you want.
Alternatively if you're interested in finding out the most recent news you can look to the right and you will notice there is a specific section dedicated to news articles.
This kind of layout gives a better reading experience, no hassle you can easily find what you want when you want, plain and simple.

In the middle there's an article paired with a related image seen above.
Having a short article on the contents page is quite common in most magazine it's not something specific to the genre, this has been done in order to allow the reader to learn small amounts of information, this usually features general news, something simple that gets the audience in the mood for a read. The article can sometimes link to another page in the magazine in which case it's being used to entice interest, it gets people's attention and encourages them to read on.

The title or heading doesn't simply say "contents" it says "this week" showing it's quite playful and chatty it immediately sets the tone for the magazine as quite informal this lets the reader feel more comfortable, it's not challenging, it doesn't use a ridiculously large vocabulary and it's relaxed, something for easy reading.

The image in the centre of the page mainly helps to break up the text giving a bit more colour to the page, it also provides a relevant scene that represents the article in particular giving more background and information. The long shot presents a band as they play at a concert, this gives both a setting and event that intrigues and entices the audience, capturing their attention and encouraging them to read on.

Here is contents page no.2

This contents page is quite similar, the colour scheme uses red, black and white for the main body of text and background, black provides a better contrast with the white background and has therefore been used to highlight the main headings on the page. Sub-headings however, to make them easier to identify have been highlighted with red, it's still bold but provides a little less contrast so as not to steal too much focus. The text itself is black however not highlighted and therefore not as bold so it doesn't steal focus. 

Each article listing has a page reference number, which are written in red colour to split them from the rest of the text making them easier to separate and identify.

The image also keeps to the colour scheme, the band members pictured pose wearing black and white clothing ,whether this has been edited or not, this has been done to keep a certain flow to the page, consistency creates fluidity, this is a technique used throughout media, both written and visual.

To the bottom right is a reviews section, this features such relevant information as to what page a music review can be found, along with a preview of what's included, this is done by simply pasting a small section of the article next to the page name and article heading which gives a little taster of what you can expect to find on that page, this basically just entices people to have a look at that page drawing interest from the audience.


Adverts

Adverts are something else featured on contents pages and throughout magazines, they will often be specific to certain types of magazine, for example adverts for festival tickets in a music magazine, perfume in a fashion magazine a DVD in a film magazine all are specific to their genre that's why if I am to accurately replicate a magazine contents page I will have to consider the limited options that appeal to this genre and its audience.

Features to Consider

Layout: The layout has to be clear and concise, it needs to keep the text to columns spaced apart if necessary so that it is easy for the reader to quickly find specific information and find the page reference number.
The images need to be few, less than 4, this keeps it simple and not confusing, all images should also have a page reference number and article name so that if the reader is interested by the picture they may want to read and find out more.
Text and page references should both be split up by headings and/or sub-headings this will make searching for separate articles quick and simple, all this is in the interests of being user friendly.

Colour scheme: All features must follow a colour code, the most popular among music magazines seems to be red, black and white, however this relates to colours not just in the text and background but also in the picture/images. Before any text or images are put into place a colour scheme must be established. This is definitely the first stage in editing the page.
A good colour scheme relies on contrast, making sure that text stands out from the background and headings standout from the text, layering the page is important for gaining the audiences interest.

Language:The articles and headings have to have a casual appeal in the words they use, they can't be too complex or too vague, otherwise the reader could become confused or frustrated. The heading and sub-headings have to be short, snappy and to the point while the text has to have a varied but not ridiculously large vocabulary this will add a compelling yet relaxed feel to the article keeping with the magazine's informal style.


In preparation for creating my contents page I needed to design the layout of the entire magazine for instance what article is on what page how many adverts e.t.c.
and so I came up with this initial draft of what this might look like.

As you can see above, my magazine would consist of 48 pages including articles, adverts and similar areas of interest within the music genre.

Just to help you understand what I have created here, I have made it so that the dashes (-) represent where a previous article flows over to the next page, for example when considering double page spreads. The areas coloured in red are the pages I will be physically creating throughout the course of this project.

Layout Design Options

To start designing my contents page I first need to choose the layout on which I have to base the rest of the features, and so I've drawn up some options from which to choose the best one to use in my finalised version of the contents page.

I then consulted my focus group on which of these was the best layout design to use,  we discussed this at length until we reached a verdict, the majority voted that design number 1 was the best layout to use.

When I asked each of them individually these are the reasons they gave:
- it's clear and not complicated.
- things are kept in sections 
- it's easier to read than the others
- there are fewer images than on the others, which is more typical of contents pages
- it's not messy, it's neat and consistent

Therefore as a result I will now be using this layout for my final contents page design, as this will prove to be the most effective and most interesting to the target audience.

Colour scheme

Below you can see 4 colour schemes that I have come up with, they vary on 4 areas i.e. each box of colour represents what colour of each feature on the page like the background, heading, sub-headings and general text. 

On asking my focus group what scheme they thought I should use they came to the decision that  number 2 was the one most consistent with my other work, for example the same colour scheme as my double page spread. Keeping this magazine consistent in simple things like layout or in this case colour gives a more professional appearance making it seem like more care and effort has been put into making it.

Final Contents Page

For my finalised version of the contents page I've used the chosen layout that I confirmed with my focus group, as you can see it works very well keeping the different sections of text separate in a neat layout that easily follows on making it quicker to read.

The colour scheme is consistent with that of the rest of my work i.e. my double page spread.
using contrasting effects between the text and the background for example, I wanted to alternate colours throughout the different sections of the page, so that this would help to split up and separate the text and hopefully emphasise the differences between sub- headings and headings.

I have used my magazine page layout as well to help make a more clear and concise use of the contents page, having already decided what articles would be on which page helped a great deal in allowing me to organise the sections of the page listings shown to the right of the page, as you can see I was able to split it into sections such as featured articles and reviews making a much better use of the page.