Music magazine contents research.

Music magazine research contents page.

The magazines that I will research and asses for ideas and influences for my music magazine front cover are Q magazine and rolling stones magazine.

In the Q magazine front cover there is a black line across the top of the page. This is done to allow the title of the page to be seen in a bold white font at the top of the page. The Q magazine logo is in the top left hand side of the page to follow up the word contents so it is the Q contents page. The date is situated in the right hand top corner of the page. This is done because it allows the reader to see what issue they are reading and to make the stories associated with the date that is there. This means that the reader knows whether or not that the stories that they are reading are in date or not.

On the right hand side of the contents page there is an image of a band called The Courteeners. They are viewed looking into the space of the image into the left hand side of the page. This is also how many other images that are in magazines are used. They often have the image of the artist on one side of the shot looking into the space on the other side. In the image at the bottom left hand side of the shot the reader is able to easily distinguish what the band are called because the content text sticks out from the left hand side of the page from the contents block. Also it gives the artists who are in the shot extra publicity as they are separate from the rest of the contents and are therefore much more easily recognised by the reader as more important.

The contents block on the left-hand side is in a straight line that stretches from the just below the top of the page to the bottom of the page. It is in a very formal style and is therefore extremely easy for the audience to read it. It is attractive to the audience as it is in a good contrast with the image on its right hand side. This is because the image is quite dark whereas the contents are quite light. The numbers on the content pages are a different colour compared with the rest of the text. This is done to emphasise the numbers and make them stand out more than the actual content text. I think this could be done so that when browsing the contents page for a particular section that appeals to you it is easier to just scan the page number allowing for a quick yet easy method of finding a page that is of interest to the audience.

There are different content titles on the page that use the same colour scheme as the Q magazine logo. These include “features” and “every month.” They are there as they break down the contents into different sections with regular appearances in the magazine and features that are unique to that particular edition of the magazine.

In the contents section of Q magazine there is also a special section about a band called Oasis. This section of the contents is viewed by the audience to be specifically important. This is because the special section is highlighted with a gold border around it which can be related by the audience to as a rare section of the magazine as gold is a rare and sought after the metal.

In the rolling stones contents page it is laid out in a very similar way to the Q magazine contents. For example the masthead of the page is in the top left hand corner of the page and the contents themselves run underneath them. The colour scheme is again similar to Q magazine due to the fact that the text is dark compared to the background this makes it easier to read.

On this contents page the image that is related to the bottom right hand text on the page takes up a large section. The image is a also accompanied by a description of what the picture is about in the top left hand side of the actual image itself. There is also a smaller snippet of the story that is in the magazine directly underneath the image.

The numbers on both the magazines are a different colour compared to the text that they relate to this creates a clear distinction from the text. There is a picture of Beyonce at the top left hand of the page. That relates to the text underneath it. The picture is there at the top of the page at the start of the contents because it can be viewed as more important than the rest of the contents. This can also b

e viewed as a special section as the text underneath writes about the top fifty or so earners  in the music industry.

In a summary both magazines have a very similar layout and I think that I will use this basic design as a template for my contents page. These conventions of the music magazine industry are almost universal. Such as the fact that the contents are always on the left and the image is on the right. The images are very large and take up most of the page. And the title is always at the top of the page to the left of the page.