Contents Page research

Comparison of contrasting Contents pages

The two contents pages I will be comparing are the contents pages from NME and XXL ; these are two opposite genres of music and i thought they would be appropriate for my research.
NME Contents
The style of the contents pages are extremely organized: there are headings for the different sections and a neat and easy to read index along the left side of the page. The main picture to illustrate the page is linked to an article inside the magazine; underneath this picture is a large bold title of what this particular article is about and a brief summary of it to get the reader interested. There are also other coloured text boxes holding page numbers for extra content such as: ‘The UK’s No1 Gig Guide Starts p58’ which attract the readers eye. There is a large black text box at the bottom of the page advertising a subscription to the magazine with bright bold text and a bold ‘save 33%’. This is on the contents page as the magazine is trying to get as many buyers as possible and showing a discount would appeal to them. Furthermore there are little symbols next to some of the contents titles saying ‘On the cover’ which is a quick way for the audience to pin point the article they are interested in reading. The heading of the contents page is bold and simple’ THIS WEEK’ it stands out the most and is clearly a contents page because of it looking like a smart and organized list. Next to this there is the masthead of the magazine to add a bright layout and matching theme to the magazine.

XXL Contents
Unlike NME, XXL’s contents page is a lot more laid back. The colour scheme is black and white and there is a considerable lesser amount of writing. This is because it is focusing more on the looks of the contents page rather than the information it is giving, it is very stylised and uses a provocative image to get the readers attention for the main story featured. The main picture dominates the page; it relates to the main cover story and is the main feature of the magazine. There are only 4 pages mentioned in the contents, these are obviously hand selected as the main important ones, they have skipped most pages to keep the page looking important and as far away from looking like a contents page as possible. At first glance I thought this page was an advert as the colours didn’t stand out and there were no long lists of pages; it was mainly a picture. There is also the masthead of the magazine missing; this keeps the page looking separate from the magazine just like an advert. This may have been done on purpose to give the page a ‘designer’ look and the title of the page ‘Top Billin’’ could mean the top rated content in the magazine this month and this then has the word ‘features’ in faint barely readable writing underneath. The only similarity I can find is that there is a main picture with a cover story underneath it, this is usually a main story that the readers will be eager to get too. I can see what the magazine has tried to do with this contents page; however I feel that it needs to stand out more so as to catch the reader’s attention. Under each contents page list there is a description of what these pages are about so that the reader can skip the other pages and get to the interesting stories.