Contents Pages

The four magazine covers that we analysed were mixmag, we love pop, NME and Q. Looking at these contents pages in detail, you can clearly tell that the types of pictures, fonts and colours used change according to the genre of music magazine.

For each magazine, there is a clear difference between their target audiences. For example mixmag, is probably aimed at people who are interested in dance music/clubbing, both genders probably between the ages 18-28. NME and Q probably have similar target audiences, being male or female, who are interested mainly in rock music and maybe between the ages 16-30. The most obvious being ‘We Love Pop’ it is obvious that their target audience will primarily be girls between the ages of maybe 7-15 +/- 2 years. This is clearly reflected through things such as colour schemes, pictures and the way that the articles are named. For example, the colour scheme is mainly black and pink, which would appeal to young girls and then other bright colours like blue and yellow. The pictures are all of celebrities within the POP genre, and they are all smiling or posing, majority of the pictures are of boys, again, appealing to younger girls. There are also more pictures than writing on the contents page for this magazine.  And finally, all of the articles mentioned contain a celebrity’s name, implying that the target audience are more interested in the artist than the music they produce.

            The genre and target audience for the magazines are also clear through the layout of each magazine. On both the NME and the Q magazine contents pages, they have the title at the top, in the biggest writing on the page and in a different font to the rest of the writing. They then each have about 6-8 pictures, and all with the appropriate numbers for their articles. They also both have some writing on each picture explaining what each article is about of a quote from the article. Whereas mixmag magazine have a completely different layout, with the pictures being the centre of the magazine. On both pages for it, there are two big pictures and then either 1 or two smaller pictures. On each picture for mixmag magazine, there is also a corresponding page number for the article but instead of a sentence or two, there is a caption of maybe a word or two, making it obvious that the main focus of the page is the picture, which could relate to the target audience/genre of the magazine.

            Looking at the difference between the contents pages for the different genres, I am making a magazine most similar to the NME and Q magazines. I will do a similar thing with the pictures, like using maybe 7 pictures and then either have a quote or a few sentences explain the article it links to.