Daniella JohnstonContents Page Analysis

The recurring theme of male artists featured throughout the magazine make it more appealing to its target audience.

Kerrang! has a consistent house style used throughout the magazine. Masculine colours make it more appealing to its audience. Moreover, colours red, yellow and black have connotations to danger, blood, cautions, violence and death which we can associate with rock music. The use of primary colours makes the page look more exciting and busy. This attracts the audience as they feel like they are getting a lot for a little.

The language aims to engage the reader. It is direct and uses words like ‘you’ and ‘your’ to give the reader a sense of involvement in the magazine making it more appealing.

The main image dominates the contents page. It is larger than everything else to highlight its importance. A low angle shot of the band ‘Hit the Deck’ has been used. It uses direct mode of address as all band members are looking at the camera to establish a relationship with the reader. In terms of body language, the band is looking down on the reader to portray their power and dominance and represent their genre of music – rock. They are manipulating the audience into reading the article featuring them. The wide show allows us to see they are standing within close proximity to each other, representing the unity of the band. The mise-en-scene in the image (grey stone wall) creates a sense of imprisonment, which we can associate with the rock music stereotype of rebellion. Finally, all of them are wearing black clothes which connote violence and death and the lead singers t-shirt says ‘blood’ on it. This also develops the idea of the band being rebellious, like a typical rock band.

The layout is organised and divided into three main sections: the main image and article, a text strip down the side and the section across the bottom consisting of advertisements and the editorial letter. Different types of articles are categorised under headings e.g. NEWS so the reader can easily navigate their way through the magazine to find the stories they are more interested in.

The same style of text from the cover has been continued onto the contents as Kerrang! has lines going through it to give it a smashed and shattered look giving connotations to the rock music stereotype of rebellion (violence and vandalism). The tattered edges represent the type of clothes we would expect a reader of the magazine to wear. Moreover, Kerrang is onomatopoeia for the strumming noise a guitar makes therefore the word instantly informs the reader of the genre of music within the magazine.

Mainly upper case letters are used to make the contents look more bold and engaging. The use of sans serif fonts give the magazine a more masculine and informative approach making it more appealing to its target audience.

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The editorial letter is a convention used in every issue the magazine. The use of conversational language and the signature of the editor adds a personal feel and makes the reader feel more appreciated for buying the magazine.

This page also follows the Guttenberg Design Principle and uses the rule of thirds as the masthead and main image are placed within the primary optical area showing they are the main focuses. The terminal area consists of the text strip and other information, whilst features that are not as important such as the issue number and cover date, are in the dead corners.

Q also has a consistent house style as the colours red, white and black have been continued to be used on the contents. The colour scheme is very minimalistic. The colour red connotes danger, anger, blood, excitement and power and all of these can be associated with many genres, showing that the magazine doesn’t focus on a specific genre. The colour is also a primary colour which makes the page look more bright and exciting. It emphasises the confidence of the magazine.

In terms of the typography, the same text has been used as the cover to brand the magazine. It is a serif font which makes the magazine formal and more professional, and also allows the audience to associate the font with Q. Q being placed before the word contents creates a brand identity and a sense of familiarity enabling the audience to easily recognise the magazine.

Q magazine has no theme. This page has images of both genders showing it is aimed at both males and females. It looks professional and organised to attract the older generation of music lovers. This is achieved through the even distribution of images and text – the page has design balance.

Whereas the text on Kerrang! is short and concise, Q goes into more detail describing what’s on each page. The language used is directed to an older target audience as it isn’t very conversational and uses no colloquia’s. It is more informative.

The name of the magazine ‘Q’ uses a serif font to make it look more formal and informative showing it is aimed at an older audience. It is very simplistic as it only uses one letter. This is effective because it doesn’t draw your attention away from the rest of the page. It also contains a pun which is in the lexical field of musical culture. ‘Q’ could suggest a cue in music for an artist to begin to perform or a queue for a concert/gig. In contrast to Kerrang! the name isn’t specific when representing a particular genre because it contains many.

The contents page follows the Guttenberg Design Principle and uses the rule of thirds as the masthead and main image are in the primary optical area, showing they are the main focuses of the page. The smaller images and articles are in the terminal area whilst the less important features such as the image of the cover are in the dead corners.

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Just like Kerrang!, the main image on the contents dominates the page. The long shot of Take That shows they are within close proximity to each other representing the unity of the band, who have recently reformed and gone back to being a ‘five piece’ which they haven’t been in 15 years. The use of black and white is effective as it creates the idea of this being a memory and that the band has history together. Other images consist of Rihanna – a mainstream pop artist. Her bright red hair and clothing represent the pop content within the magazine. Iconography – the speaker phone is also used to represent her album ‘Loud’. There are two images of live performances and we can see guitarists which we would associate more with rock music, showing it contains this genre too. One image is of a band that aren’t posing and looking directly at the camera like we would expect mainstream artists to. Therefore along with their style of clothing and long hair, we can only assume their genre is indie and that there are also elements of this genre in the magazine.

The layout is organised and very basic as it is divided into three main columns – there is a text strip on either side of the page with a cluster of images in the middle. A clear use of page numbers and headings to summarise the articles makes it easy to navigate around the page.

Daniella Johnston