Contents Page Analysis

To help us gain more of a understanding on the main features of a contents page in a magazine, we had to look at 3 different contents pages and analyse them. I chose to look at 3 teen pop magazines and then went to go on and explain how the features attract the target audience.

The first two pictures are an analysis of the contents page inside a issue of Top of the Pops.  As you can see, the layout is kept very similar in both. For example, the image of the front cover is shown in both and the main articles are highlighted in yellow to make them stand out.

The image below is from the contents page of Bliss magazine. Similarly, this magazine does the same as the Top of the Pops issues by using a picture of the front cover in the contents. This helps to create a more visual effect and comes across as appealing to the younger audience that Bliss and Top of the Pops aim for.

This has informed my own creative decisions for my final product as it has helped me to understand the way in which my contents page should be set out and what sort of layout I should follow when creating it. By analysing these magazines, I now know how I am going to organise my contents page in order for it to appeal to my target audience. For example, I plan to follow a similar layout to the Top of the Pops contents page by separating different sections of the magazine into boxes, making it easier for the audience to read.