Rolling stone contents page

This is a contents page from Rolling Stone magazine. At the top-left of the page, there is the letters “RS”. The masthead is different to the front cover masthead – instead of showing the Rolling Stone “Rolling Stone” logo in Royal Acid, it says “RS1172/1173”. The colour scheme of the page is red, white, black and yellow. The page is split into four sections; the “SPECIAL SECTION” with the biggest article and the main image; “FEATURES” with the articles featured on the front cover; “ROCK & ROLL” with all of the rock genre themed articles in the paper, and “2012 YEAR IN REVIEW” with all of the reviews and articles of the year (the convention is to split it into two sections, feature articles and regular articles). The magazine fits with the rule of thirds, with the main article listings on the right two-thirds and the secondary article listings fitting in the left third.

There is a selling line in the left third of the page. Under each article name and page number is a brief description of the article, which is a convention of contents pages.

The “RS” in the masthead is put in to keep the branding within the magazine and to help keep an association with the front cover – this is a normal practice in contents page creation. This association is further utilised with the colour scheme, which is the same as with the front cover. The splitting of the article listings into four sections instead of the usual two makes the magazine feel more innovative and non-repetitive, which magazines can feel like after a while to regular readers/subscribers. The rule of thirds is used all the time in magazines – it is a universal convention – and this is used because it feels more natural than a 50/50 split of the page. Some of the article listing titles alliterate (“Pot Problems”, “Master of Middle-Earth”), showing that one of the purposes of the article is to persuade the audience to read and buy the issue. The main focus point of the image is the top-left of the masthead, followed by the main image on the middle-right of the page and then the left of the page with the article listings; the focal points of the image do not follow the 'Z' rule, where the viewers gaze goes from the top of the page, to the left and then to the right. The presence of the selling line helps to sell the magazine to the audience, showing that one of the aims of the contents page is to persuade the audience to buy the magazine.