Analysing the Contents Page: Similar Product Research

BBC Music Mag February 2009

This magazine is a double page spread. The main story of the magazine is presented on the left page and is portrayed alongside an image of Andre Previn which illustrates the story, therefore drawing the readers interest. The rest of the contents that are in the magazine are placed on the right page in a column with a different colour scheme to the rest of the contents page. This column features a white background with black writing where as the rest of the page has a grey background. This again makes it stand out to the reader. The contents page of this magazine contains a total of six images including the one that illustrates the main story. In addition, it also contains two images that emphasise the fact that the magazine contains a free disc with music from Leos Janacek. This magazine has a classical theme that is emphasised by the artistic nature of the images used to promote the free disc and some of the articles inside the magazine. Another feature that the creator of the magazine used to draw the readers focus is the use of blue backgrounds for the headings of the articles. This is coupled with the white writing to help make the headings stand out. The typography of this magazines contents page is displayed using eight different sizes of font and five different font styles. We thought that this magazine was for male and female audiences and this is backed up by the fact that the contents does not specifically target only one gender. This contents page is written using formal language which is mainly associated with an older audience. However is does not address the audience personally as it does not use the second person narrative frequently, only when advertising other BBC products. 

DJ Mag No 70 February 2009

This magazine is a single page spread.The main story of the magazine is presented on the left side of the page and the rest of the contents are on the right side of the page. The main article is portrayed by an image of Josh Wink, this image is a medium close up. The other articles also have an image to represent them as well, these images help to attract the readers attention to the shown articles. The main stories on the contents page they have been written on a black background with white writing, whereas the other contents have different coloured backgrounds such as pink, blue, yellow and purple, these help to separate each section of the magazine contents page. Different coloured text has also been used on each of the backgrounds to match the colour of them as well as black text, this also helps helps to separate each of the stories. The genre of this magazine is dance music and is suitable for an audience of up and coming DJ's, young adults and people who are interested in dance music. We thought that this magazine was aimed at mainly a male audience because they mainly use male models and dark colours have been used. This magazine contents page uses formal language which goes against the stereotype for young people, it also uses alliteration, a question to draw the audience in, no second person narrative have been used so the audience has not been addressed directly. There are five different fonts that have been used and six different sizes of font. 

Erica Swaby and Shaun Casey