Content Page Analysis of 3 Music Magazines

Various offers and competitions will make the readers want to get involved in the contents and win.

Top of the Pops is a music magazine that is published by Immediate Media Company. Its demographic audience is generally young females, aged 11 to 15 years old and includes gossip pages, quizzes and fashion pages.

The font used is curly and looks as though it is handwritten as it looks scribbly. The curling of the letters looks similar to how young girls write in their diaries. The content page uses the slang ‘mag’ to help to relate to its target demographic.

What sets Top of the Pops’ contents page a part from Vibe and Billboard is that it has an image of its front cover on the page. This helps to remind the audience of what main articles can be found within the magazine and it also uses numbers that point towards the articles on the front cover. This makes it easier for the younger audiences to find the article that they are looking for.The content page highlights particular features in the magazine and sorts them into categories that help the reader find the article they will be more interested in. The section ‘We love boys’ is definitely relating to the magazine’s demographic target who are young females.

The house style consists of bright and generally girlish colours. Pink, yellow and black, though pink is key colour used throughout, not only the contents page, but the entire magazine. Pink is a colour that represents compassion, nurturing and love. It’s the colour combination of red and white so it contains the passion of red and the success of white. Pink is generally a feminine colour and in psychology, pink is a sign of hope and is a positive colour that manufactures warmth and comforting feelings. It is a colour that is used on magazines that have a demographic of young girls. The colour yellow is used to highlight important articles, it is a positive colour that has connotations of joy and happiness.

A smaller image of One Direction is included this implies that within the magazine there is an article about them within the magazine. One Direction are also very popular and relevant to the pop music genre and to teenage girls.

The content page includes smaller images of what the magazine believes that the target audience wants. The pictures that have been included on this contents page are various fashion items because generally, teenage girls love fashion and also there are various fashion articles within the magazine.

The colour pallet that is used for Vibe’s content page includes the colours blue, grey and black. These colours all compliment one another and create a modern, elegant look to the magazine. It makes the contents page look more expensive and rich as all of the colours used have associations with elegance and sophistication.

The main image of the page is a mid-shot of popular hip-hop and R&B singer, Kanye West. The picture has been edited to a black and white effect. Kanye is standing with his hands in his pockets and looking directly into the camera. His body language and facial expression both looked reserved and mysterious. One of the main features of this image iswhat appears to be thefemale’s hand across hischest where a red heart islocated. This is significantbecause this could be imagery for the girls trying to win over Kanye’s heart indicating that he is desirable to women. He is dressed fashionably in vintage looking clothes which also corresponds to the vintage effect of the image.

The title of the page ‘CONTENTS’ is separated into 3 lines (which is a convection of Vibe magazine). This makes the magazine unique and also gives the contents page a more modern look and makes it more eye catching. The typography is large and uses a sans serif font which makes the page look modern and causes it to stand out.

A large, pale blue V is placed behind the main image of Kanye to represent the name of the magazine ‘Vibe’. It is a reoccurring feature of the magazine’s contents page. Because the colour is a pale blue, it runs behind Kanye and draws the eye to this section of the contents page.

The ‘features’ title is in a fancy and formal font and looks as though it has been written with a calligraphy because of the extended flicks at the ends of the letters. There is only 4 or 5 featured contents included on the contents page which is quite vague. Aside from being a music magazine, Vibe also includes a fashion section. This could relate to how fashionable Kanye is dressed,

Vibe is a music magazine that focuses on the hip-hop and R&B genre of music. The magazine’s target audience is aged from 18-35 and this is due to the magazine’s content and the different images and articles in the magazine.

There are different varieties of fonts used on the contents page to make the page appear more unique and professional.

The ‘features’ section of the page is listed to the side of the main image of Kanye West. The page numbers are printed in bold. Underneath is a brief description of what the article is about and this helps the reader to find an interesting article.

There is a subtle use of Billboard magazine’s masthead above the chart. It could be used to remind the reader what magazine they are reading. It is also included to remind the reader that this is not the official chart, but is Billboard’s chart and shows that this is a unique feature of Billboard’s magazine. Because Billboard magazine is devoted to what is popular within the charts, there are many genres of music that are put together in this magazine because chart music has mixed genres.There are a number of images used on Billboard’s contents page but the main image is an image of an artists. The model is crouched down and looks as though she is gazing in the direction of the text below which indicates for us to look there. The camera angle is low and the shot is long. The model is smiling the image and looks friendly and relaxed.

Title of the page looks as though it has been written with a stencil. Its style was in block letters and in black which helps to make it stand out from the rest of the page. The title contrasts with the background as its white against black, it is positioned at the very top of the page above the rest of the contents. They all make ‘contents’ stand out.

Billboard is a weekly American music magazine that is devoted to all genres of music in the music industry. It is published by the American entertainment publishing company Prometheus Global Media. The magazine’s target audience are people who are interested in not only music but the people behind the music and are generally both male and female aged from the ages of 15-26.

The house style is consistent throughout the content pages. The colour scheme includes blue, white and black (which is similar to Vibe’s contents page). These colours are also included in Billboard’s masthead. White and black are basic tones as they both connotate simplicity and together they make great contrast. The blue compliments the white and black because of the calm connotations that the colour is associated with.

The layout of the page is crowded though the contents page is informative and informs people about what is inside the issue of the magazine. There are overall 2 columns in the contents page and this helps to show the main and featured contents of the magazine though it does not show all of the magazine’s content. The different sections of the contents page (‘Upfront’, ‘Features’, ‘Music’ and ‘In every issue’) and this is a very helpful feature as it helps reader to know exactly what they are looking for within the magazine.

The page number is located at the bottom and makes it easier for the reader to navigate their way through the magazine.

Promotions for events are included at the bottom of the contents page. ‘Online’ subheading is also included. These columns give specific detailing to the reader to get involved these area. Attention to these subtexts are drawn by the use of green text.

Images of different artists from different genres of music that contrast. So therefore the magazine is targeted at people who are interested in various genres of music.