Contents Page Analysis

By looking at this contents page, there are a lot of images used. These images consist of a live picture of an artist on stage, an animated image of 5 men wearing Christmas hats, a man speaking into a megaphone and 3, assumed, band members walking towards the camera. The magazine does this to show the reader what particular pages will be based on and gives additional detail to that specific page. These pictures have been constructed in a way to fit the structure of the contents page; they’ve also been constructed to specify each individual image in the category of importance. This is shown with the biggest picture being at the top and the smallest picture at the bottom, with another less important image being dragged to the side away from the main content of this page.

My initial findings of this magazine, based on the front cover, is that it is focused on rock music, and this has been supported by these images used on the contents page. These images clearly show rock artists which is obviously something to do with rock music; there are other images that relate to specific sections within the magazine which aren’t as important as the bigger images used. The contents page appears to be kind of messy and seems aggressive through the roughness of the title “Contents” at the top. This reflects back to the image the magazine is trying to create as a rock magazine.

Contrasting colours such as black and white are used; these are neither colourful nor bright colours, indicating that the magazine wants the contents page to appear dark and resemble the genre of music they represent. The font is in block capitals as it is bold & clear and also shows the importance of each page as each page name is in capitals.  This supports the front cover as the front cover also consists of dark colours and bold capitals to keep the house style and represent rock music in every way possible.

The information on this contents page is organised in a way that separates each segment well to show each page individually. It is clear where to look for each page as the page numbers are red which will catch the reader’s eye. Also, each group of pages is organised into a specific category, for example, “News” and “Features”, so that the reader can find what they want to read and read it.

The different sections all commit to the house style and none look more important than others, which is good as it shows that all the pages share important information that should be read. This tells you that though the magazine may appear rough, the structure is very organised and neat to please the reader.    

There are promotional features on this contents page to advertise and, obviously, promote bands, gigs and posters so that the magazine serves an additional purpose to providing information and entertainment to the reader. Specifically, the poster could possibly attract possible readers to the magazine if they can get a poster of their favourite band.

There is no magazine logo on the contents page or anything to identify what magazine the contents page is from, apart from the consistent house style used.

The contents page doesn’t advertise any other Kerrang associated franchises and therefore, nothing to do with Kerrang is being promoted on the contents page.