Contents Analysis - Summary of findings

These are the conventions I've managed to pick up on from my analysis of the 4 contents I gathered.

Language

• Separated into 2 or 3 sections - All of the contents I've looked at have been divided into sections, normally like regulars, features and a more individual part like ClashFashion and QReview. I will look into my own individual feature, but I'll definitely separate it up some way, but I may come up with a little collection, like the Clash names, depending whether I go for the neat feel or the more thrown together look.
• Straightforward meanings - Most of the time it's fairly easy to denote the feature names, however this will probably depend on an individual's circumstances, as the reception theory states, as maybe a reason I wasn't familiar with some of the Clash features was because I'm not involved with that area of music. So I'll have to decide when making my own whether to have clear meanings in my names and descriptions for appreciation or to leave them with more ambiguity in order to intrigue my readers.
• Clever cliches and name combos - Humour and cliches are often used in feature names to make them seem smart and entertaining, although this on the front cover is often seen as juvenile. So I think if I were this convention I'd have to be real careful not to make them too cheesy. Also the name of the magazine is incorporated into regular features, like "Blender Bible","Q Mail" and "Personality Clash", which I think will be quite fun to do depending on my name, but overkill would be more than 3. Also a common feature is "The *MagazineName* Interview" which is something I'll probably use to to be subtly conventional.
• Features for diversion, surveillance and personal identity - Obviously because people find escapism in music, this is an extension of that which makes for diversion from their own lives into that of artists. Although surveillance is described as information which is useful for living, I believe that a lot of the information a reader will learn in here will be useful in their lifestyle, like about gigs, festivals and new music. Because musicians are often role models I think behaviour and values will come across in interviews, therefore making a source for personal identity.

Image

• Use most popular celebrities - For the images on a contents they tend to feature the acts with the biggest or most widespread fan base in order to encourage as many readers as possible, and to show they're a big scale magazine. It's just the same as the cover using the biggest act they've got in that issue, or someone who's purposely been picked to feature on the cover. Also, as I learnt from the Q contents, the images don't have to be massively relevant, although that is misleading, but helps when they are like on the Clash and Blender contents.
• Range in amount - I'm not sure if there's a convention to the amount or size of images on a contents, but I think a general statement could be 1 main image, whether that means just one full page image (like Spin) or a main larger image (like Q), even if there are smaller ones. Even the Blender one could fit subtly to this convention, as it's obvious the Lil Wayne is the main one. I'll ask about this on my questionnaire probably, as it's something I don't really know how to decide, but I really find the full page one very effective.
• Unusual - I think contents images tend to be a little more out there than one on the cover, as they magazine doesn't want to offend or put off the audience so plays it safe on the cover, but inside on the contents they need some abstract element to encourage the reader, like the unusual photo of Madonna in Q, the shock effect the Duffy photo in Spin may have, and all the bright colour of those in Blender.

Font

• Few fonts - Generally all the fonts are fairly simple, but often the one for the small descriptions will be either completely plain or traditional serifed, and the larger one for the titles will have some sort of quirky detail to it like Clash's square serifs and Q's very rounded futuristic font. Sometimes there's a combo of one being serifed, the other not, possibly to create a subtle balanced look of tradition and contemporary, but this isn't always the case if a magazine is aiming for one specific look or the other, like Blender which has an incredibly modern contents, or Rolling Stone where all the fonts are serifed for a more classic look.

Colour

• 3 main colours - On the 3 out of 4 I did, they generally had a 3 colour scheme. Like Clash had black, white and orange, Q had black, white and red, then Blender had black, white and pink. See the pattern? Generally black and white are used to keep it simplistic then maybe the brightest colour is picked out from the images and used for the page numbers and/or titles, so I think this is a convention I'll most likely follow because it ties everything together subtly if there's a lot of colour in the images and it gives quite a neat feel. Also it encodes that the magazine knows what it's doing, as I think the reader would notice it and see what the magazine has done.

Layout

• Image on right - Although layout generally is pretty different for each magazine and I would say is mostly up to me when creating my own, something that is similar with most of my contents in that the right side is more image heavy, possibly to encourage readers to read the text first, like from left to right. However Clash puts the images on the left and Blender has images on the top half, indicating they want their images to be saw first, so this will be a decision I make when I've got my text and images to see which one is the better half maybe?