Conventions of a Contents page

• Bold title to show the audience whats on the page.
• Page numbers to show what contents are on what page
• Pictures to show whats on some pages to draw the readers in to that page.
• Subscriptions to attract the audience to the offers in that magazine
• Regulars - The parts of the magazine that are in every week such as an agony aunt
• A simple layout - if the layout is too complex it may be difficult for the audience of the magazine to read therefore they might find it difficult to find contents to their allocated page number.

Conventions of a magazine front cover

The conventions of a magazine:-
Big bold title of magazine - Tells the audience what its called, what type of magazine it is, title must be easily recognisable.
Date - Usually in small print in the corner of the magazine.
Pictures - Main picture to go with main subject, 1 small picture somewhere else on the cover to go with a sub content.
Sub content titles - Seem to be grouped together on part of the front cover, a picture may accompany.
Main subject - Includes a large picture, the main focus when you look at the magazine, makes you want to buy it.
Colours - Show what is included in the magazine or the type of magazine. For example, dark colours are usually on a gaming magazine, bright colours on a tv magazine.

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close up plus some appropiately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Main Task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text used must be orginal, produced by you - minimum of four images.