Analysis of Mixmag magazine contents page

In the above…

2 thirds of this magazine contents are filled with a picture and stories which will be inside, the other third is taken up by the advertisement of the free CD which get when you open the magazine, this section tells you a little bit about the album which you get free and also is showing what songs are on this album. I think this is a good idea to use when you don’t have the biggest magazine and you don’t have enough stories to fill the page without making things too big and looking stupid. If I find myself in this position I might think about doing something like this. I do like the layout of this page as usually when you only have A4 contents pages you have the written on the left hand side then images on the right, but this magazine has done the opposite in going with  larger image on the left and the written on the right. I like this idea as I think it looks original and unique because it is not being a sheep and following what other magazines tend to do. I may go with this style but I’m not sure.

There are two images used in this contents and the main one really fits in with the style of the magazine as it is a DJ/dance magazine and it has a girl dancing in the club. The other image fits, but in a different style to the other picture, as this magazine isn’t, mainstream and the band that they have put in this mag don’t look like the type who like dance music they look more like an indie band who would be in something like kerrang. I think this is a good idea but I my contents I will stick to images which I think people can relate to with the genre/style of the magazine.

The title on the contents page is the only bit of text which uses ‘san serif’ text style which is when they letters curl at the end. I think this works with the style of the magazine because of how it is a DJ magazine I get the picture of the letters being spun round on the decs and it has created this sort of effect. All the other text is ‘san’ which means it is very straight and very bold , this makes it stand out from  the page whereas ‘san serif’ doesn’t in my opinion. Most of the time though in magazines the titles are in the style of ‘san’ and the rest of the text is in ‘san serif’ but in this case they have went opposite.  As in most magazines the main stories title are in bold and the little introduction is not, as it is not as important. The colour scheme in which has been used is black and white mainly with the odd bit of yellow or pink for the title and to advertise that free CD you get inside. On my contents page I will go mainly for a white background with black written with a stand out colour which is involved on the front cover so it looks like it fits in with the magazine itself.