Analysis of magazine contents page.

1. House Style
From lookingat other mixmag
contents pages there is a pattern
that all of these magazines follow.
Many have a largepicture of the left
sideof the page and then the
contents page showingwhat will be
featured in this edition of the
magazine. The text of this contents
page is in the colour white which
immediately stands out from the
completely black background of the
page. The two colour contrastso
well it makes the whole page stand
out.
Imagery
There is one largepicture of a girl
placed to the left sideof the page.
The picture is a brightpicturebut
the girl seems to be at some kind of
party as shelooks likesheis dancing.
Underneath there is a caption which
says ‘snapped:pictures from the
world’s best parties’.This suggests
that this a magazinefor young
people and people who enjoy
parties.The fact that the caption
says ‘world’s bestparties’tells the
audiencethat this magazineis aimed
at party-goers and the image will
provoke excitement amongst a
younger audience.
DesignBalance
The contents page of this mixmag
magazine is fairly equal.However,
the picture is too big to take up near
enough one whole contents page
and likethe Kerrang! Magazine
contents page, there should be
features such as other smaller
pictures or even posts from the
writer included to even out the text
to image ratio.The colours of this
page are symmetrical becausethe
colours of the font don’t change
from white and the colours fromthe
image of the girl contrastwell with
the black background and overall,
the colours complement each other.
Target audience and need
The target audienceof this magazine
would be teenagers or young adults
aged 16-25 years old. This is because
the largepicture in almostthe
centre of the page shows a girl
dancingatwhat looks likea party.
Parties suggests teenagers and
adults and areusually notassociated
with younger people; it will catch
the attention of a teenager/young
adultwhich may encourage them to
buy the mixmag magazine as itlooks
entertaining. The magazine may
appeal to a younger audience
because the vibrantcolours are
attractive.
The GuttenbergDesignPrinciple
The primary optical area of this
contents page contains the small
mixmag logo and the large
photograph of the girl dancing.Itis
in a small fontto suggest that this is
not the most important feature on
the page. The strong fallowarea
contains the contents page which
continues all the way down the right
hand sideof the page to the
terminal area.This long contents
page suggests that this is a more
important feature as ittakes up one
full length of a page.