Contents Page Analysis - NME

When we look at this contents page we are immediately drawn to the main image as it is in the centre of the page making it the focal point. It is the largest image on the page making it seem important and hints to us that this is what the main article is about. The artist in the main image is wearing smart clothes looking sophisticated suggesting it is not for a very young audience but for 18-25 year olds. The background is stripy making it look retro which links with the genre rock.

The layout of this magazine has a collage effect which makes it look different and allows it to stand out more. For the colour scheme they have used lots of bright vibrant colours (mainly red blue and yellow) which subverts to the stereotype of rock as rock is usually seen as dark simple and straightforward where as the use of bright colours here conveys that it is very loud and messy as though about to burst which suggests that they are challenging the stereotype to make it even more eye catching. Also by making it look so busy with lots of images makes it seem as though there is so much inside to offer and that you get a lot more than what you paid for which attracts a lot of people, this attracts the correct target audience as they like to have a lot to read about and making it busy will not confuse them as they are not young audience but young adults.

The tie-in at the bottom of the page is for a subscription deal for those who are addicted to music, telling them that they can subscribe for just 20p an issue for their first two months. This attracts a lot of the audience as most of them will of course love music as they have bought a music magazine. The way they have highlighted the 20p in white makes it stand out and seem like such a bargain that people will want to subscribe even if they are not so addicted.

The contents page has limited information which draws you in as they give you a little bit of what’s inside but leave you to find out the rest once buying the magazine, doing this makes the audience want to know the rest of the story especially if it is on an artist they listen to and admire.  An example of this is the floating quote which gives you a bit of what the main article is about, and leaves you to read the rest.

The contents page is well laid out with the listed contents and their page numbers making it easy for the audience to get to the page they are looking for. They have used sub headings to categorise the reference again making it easy for the audience to see what different references the magazine offers and all the different topics they can read about making it easy for them to get to the reference they want.