Production Log: Contents Page Research

14th March:
Research into the appearance and different elements that make up contents pages

Here i have simply analysed several different contents pages from several different magazines and identified key elements of each one. I shall differentiate between common factors and indifferent factors really seen in contents pages. The first page i have chosen to study is a contents page from a november edition of Q magazine.

 

Q Magazine Contents Page

Obviously the focus point of the page is the large image of an artist here unusually placed on the contents page. Usually an image of this size will only be found on the front cover of a magazine, however i think it works here very well. I found that the text used all over the contents page is fairly small and no text stands out on the page as a focus point. I don’t like this and i feel a large text somewhere on the page will work more effectively.

This image isn’t obviously from an established magazine, and i presume it is a students work, however i chose to analyse it for the bold feature included. I do not like the image or colour scheme the editor has chosen to use, however i love the way that the masthead (“Contents”) has been placed to the left of the canvas, and not only that, but the word is unusually facing outwards from the centre of the page, unlike other pieces of text which would normally faced inwards if placed on their side. I think i will use this technique (placing text down the page as appose to across it) as it keeps the page expressive without using images of large size.

~ by Henry Phillips on March 26, 2009.