Demonstration on the different conventions in a contents page and whether I have followed it or not.

1. FOLLOWING AND CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS:
CONTENTS PAGE

2. TITLES
One convention of contents pages is the
title as it is normally the first thing you
notice as you open up the contents page. I
have gathered some “Contents” titles
from Mixmag and Billboard magazine to
compare it to my magazine. Billboard and
Mixmag have a similar font style as it is
quite bold and noticeable with huge sizes
which is normally similar to the masthead
or company logo. I followed this
convention as it is good to look at as you
are able to see it clearly and following the
same font type as my masthead on the
front cover but I challenged this as I put
the title a different font type as my
masthead because I didn’t want it to be
too bold for it to cover most of the
contents page.

3. ARTICLES
As you can see, I have researched the magazines contents page
of Billboard and also Mixmag. Content articles are normally
listed in columns chronologically with page number references
to each one. From the examples, I have chosen the style of
Mixmag as you can easily see the articles and what they are
about underneath and gives good effect as the colour scheme
goes with the background.
I have followed this
convention as I thought it
would be a great idea for the
UV light effect of green to go
against the background
colour of black and I thought
it works well. However, I have
challenged this convention as
I have separated it into 2
different columns and
subheadings with one
column on different artists
and one about places and
what to do around the world
as it is the ultimate magazine
guide to clubbing.

4. SUBHEADINGS
From conducting my research, another convention of
contents pages are separating different articles into
different categories. Examples from Billboard and Mixmag
show that in different issues they separate about what they
are going to be talking about depending on which stories
seem more exciting than others.
I have chosen 2 subheadings
for my contents page as I
thought that having 13 pages
worth of content would be
enough for my magazine at
this early stage with
competitions, around the
world tours, artists interviews
etc. I liked the look of other
contents page with bold style
writing and bright colours
showing that it is easy to read
as well as the content
underneath the subheadings.
I therefore decided to follow
the conventions of my own
work by using the same fonts
as my front cover for
continuity.

5. ISSUE DATES
The issue date or number is normally
repeated on each of the contents page the
magazine produces. They are usually near
the logo and are in a small font on the left
hand top corner. I followed this conventions
shown here by Billboard magazine and
Mixmag magazine. However, Billboard have
their issue date on the bottom right hand
corner next to the barcode which means that
you would hardly see it which I therefore
changed this convention for it to be the
middle way between the logo and the title of
the contents page because I tried to follow
examples from Mixmag mainly as most of
their issue dates are designed to stand out
and that is what I tried to do.

6. IMAGES
When researching existing products, I found that
mainly all magazines used other images apart
from their main artists in their contents page.
Mixmag however, didn’t really have other images
apart from the iconic one except from an
advertisement image of something they can
purchase. I challenged this as I thought I needed
to put some more pictures of other artists on so
that it doesn’t make the magazine look cheesy
and just about one person where I added photos
of a concert which I went too. Billboard use a
variety of different artists who are placed on the
contents to show versatility and excitement of
other people being on the page. I chose to use
one larger image for my main story to show it is
recognisable as it is the main selling point of the
product.