NME Magazine, Contents Analysis.

The banner at the top of the page includes the magazine title and the date on which NME issue was released, and as the magazine promotes 'NME This Week', it tells the readers that there is a new edition released every week, and they may therefore go and buy the magazine next week if they enjoy reading it, as they now know how many times it is released and when. The contents page is quite busy, and textual, as it has writing everywhere except for in the middle, where a medium sized picture is shown and there isn't an blank spaces or many gaps to break up the text. The main picture is accompanied by a small piece of information that is in bigger text than the writing surrounding it, giving the readers some extra information about UK gigs and tours, and how they were received/reviewed. The bigger text draws attention to the information, and makes the readers think that they are getting more than they paid for, as not many music magazine have this sort of information on the contents page On the left hand side of the page there is a column of red text that goes all the way down the page, which is the band index. It lists all the bands that are featured in the magazine and on which page people will be able to find them, allowing the readers to find bands that interest them and read that article with little effort, as they don't have to go through the whole magazine to look for artists that may interest them. The fact that the list is in red text makes it stand out from the rest of the page, and in respect, boasts and advertises the fact that there is a band list to make the reading more enjoyable. The right hand side of the page shows all the important articles in the magazine, and each one has been categorised into different aspects in which they fit. This would help the audience to look at the articles in which they are more interested in, each of the 5 categories are about different things, and therefore if the reader wanted to look at the review of a new music album it would be easy for them to find it. The contents page also includes little arrows to highlight the articles that were featured on the front page, making it easier to find articles that may have compelled the reader to buy the magazine. There is also a box of information at the bottom of the page that gives the reader the option to subscribe to the magazine, and how they would do it. The text is in a yellow font because it helps draw attention to the advert and the magazine would orefer people to subscribe to their magazine.

I think that the idea of indicating which articles are featured on the front cover is a good way of letting the readers find the articles they were interested in easily, however I wouldn't use black arrows like NME have done, because I think it makes the contents page look a little depressing and bland, and the look of the page would benefit more from brighter coloured arrows.