Contents Page Design

This is the design process for the contents page of my magazine.

This is the first basic template of my contents page. I stuck to basic key conventions that I have seen in past contents pages in my research. I followed a red/white/black colour scheme on the contents page, however I believe that the red is far too overpowering. The only black which features on the page at all is in the contents titles. This means that the contents would appear too bright and may even end up be off-putting to the reader. I have implemented the horizontal version of my masthead. I have also inserted a piece of text which says 'contents'. This has been manipulated to appear slanted slightly, coloured red and been given a white 'stroke' effect to stand out against the black background. The essential information has also been added, and placed in a different location than what was previously stated on my final flat plans. I still think it is just as effective here, and makes the top section look nice and compact, and free from any white space. In the flat plans, I also stated that the list/table of contents would be placed on the left hand side. This, however, has been changed and the list of contents has now been placed on the right. This fits in with the key conventions which I have previously listed. I stated within that post that I may differ the position of the table of contents so that it is placed on the left-hand side of the page; however, decided there was no need for this as (by sticking to the traditional convention) it is proven to work and guaranteed to remind the reader of a typical music magazine. The only thing which I think needs to dramatically be changed is the colour of the contents page as a whole. The bright red colour is very overpowering, especially compared to the comparatively minuscule amount of dark, black colour on the page.

This is the second version of my magazine contents page. In this design, I have acted on my own personal feedback, and changed the majority of the red areas on the contents page to black. In doing so, I have ensured that there are still areas that stand out as red against the dark layout. These are mainly titles or sub-headings, with the page numbers also remaining red. This lets the reader focus their attention towards the highlighted areas which stand out on the page (which is, in this case, the red areas). That is why, I believe, the page was nowhere near as effective when all of it was red due to the fact that there was nowhere specifically for the reader to focus their attention, and the entire page was demanding the reader's attention.

In this version, I have added a 'subscribe' advertisement at the bottom of the page. I decided that the colour yellow went well here, as many websites (e.g. YouTube) used this colour to represent subscriptions, and since the colour is featured nowhere else on the page, this specific area will attract the reader's attention. I also added a small 'Note from the editor' in the lower-left hand corner of the page, still keeping with the red, white and black colour scheme as discussed in past plans. I also added a blank area where my image will go, as well as a small summary of the article which the image will correspond to.

In this version, I added the image. I decided to make it correspond with a different article, and so changed the description underneath accordingly. As well as this, I added another image to the right hand side of this, and below the contents, which is a smaller summary of a less important article. Both of these images were chosen as I previously stated that I thought they fit the overall mood of 'previews' and were both optimum choices for the contents page. I also added a second column of contents to my contents list, however I believe that the text is now too small for the viewers to easily read.

In this final version, all I have done is wrote less in the summary boxes underneath each list item on the right hand side and, also, made the text size slightly bigger, to combat the small text issue on the previous cover. In my opinion, this contents page now looks as if it is a professional-quality contents page, containing many of the key conventions that you would expect to see in a magazine content page.