Kerrang Contents Page Analysis

The Kerrang contents page has a casual, laid-back house style as it creates a friendly approach to the reader as in the text it says ‘pretty cool gift, huh?’ this suggests that the magazine is trying to treat the reader as a friend. The use of colloquial language throughout the page, for example the caption for one of the images is ‘Nice hair, bro’ also suggests a friendly, jokey approach and suggests that the magazine is trying to target and appeal to a younger audience of young adults and teenagers. This mode of address also suggests that they are trying to get the reader to relate to the magazine and appeal to the readers interests. The contents page carries on with the tone from the front page as the page is very busy and crowded with lots of use of text, images and colours. The colour scheme is mainly black, yellow and red which give the page a clear easy layout. Each colour clearly shows a set function, the colour red has been used for all the page numbers, the yellow has been used with a black background for the sub headlines and the black has been used for the rest of the text. The names of the band featured in the article are in bold whereas the normal text underneath is not, separating the two and highlighting which articles are about which bands. This layout of the colour scheme helps the reader clearly distinguish what’s what.

The plain white background doesn’t draw attention from the main features of the page and also makes the title of the page stand out. The title is bold and written in white with a big black background, the use of the black on white colours contrast with each other separating the title from the normal text on the rest of the page. There is a lot of use of capital letters mainly for the headlines and sub headlines whereas the rest of the text is in lower case letters, this makes the headlines and sub headlines stand out so that they can clearly be recognised as the most important part of each section.

The photographs and big numbers on the 3 main features draw attention to the main focus of the magazine. The largest photograph is for the band Sleeping with Sirens, this band is the feature article photograph on the front cover suggesting that they are the main feature of this issue of the magazine therefore showing their importance by continuing to make them the main feature on the contents page; this also appeals to the target audience as they may have bought the magazine because they were a fan of that particular band. A kicker has also been used for ‘Hello readers’ for the purposes of attracting interest to the reader. The typography is black, bold and is in capital letters, these features link in well with the purpose of the kicker.