Codes and conventions – Magazine contents page

Magazine front page – some magazines have an image of the front page of that issue. This is done to remind readers of what is on the cover so they don’t have to look back. Most magazines with an image of the front cover will then have a list of articles featured on the cover to make it easy for readers to find the article that has attracted them to the magazine.

Cover lines – some contents pages have the cover lines listed with the page numbers and a small insight to the article.

Marketing – magazines use the contents page to promote things like their social medias and subscriptions.

Headings – most contents pages are split up into headed sections. On a typical magazine some of these headings may be – ‘features’, ‘regulars’. Having it split in sections makes it easy for the readers to find a relevant article.

More than one image – on a contents page multiple images are used to attract different target audiences. If there is different images from different articles its more likely to catch the attention of different audiences.

Layout – most contents pages are lay out in columns. This makes it easy for the readers to follow and find a specific article.

Page numbers – page numbers stand out so it is clear to the readers what page each article can be found on.

Headings – all headings are in bold and a brighter colour than the rest of the text on the page. This is so that they stand out and it is clear what the different articles are in the magazine. The title ‘contents’ usually stands out on the page however not all as the layout of the page is usually enough for readers to know its the contents page.

Main image – the main image will take up the most space on the page than any other image. With the image will usually be a small description.

Limited colours – the colours of a contents page usually follow the front cover.