XXL has two contents pages. I am analyzing what XXL call ‘The A-Side’. The other contents page is called ‘The B-side’. The ‘A-Side’ is seen as the more superior contents page because it features more on the main feature of the magazine. In this case, singer/rapper Chris Brown. The ‘B-Side’ contents page contains the smaller features and XXL own content. The A-Side and the B-Side connote a vinyl record. vinyls are very iconic to the hip-hop genre and XXL have interpreted this into their contents page.
The main and only image on this page is of cover artist Chris Brown. He is wearing casual attire and is showing elements of hip-hop culture with tattoos, jewellery and his purple bandana, which could be seen as a gang item. The leather jacket that he wears is very shiny and looks like he paid a lot for it. hip-hop artist tend to think that they are more important than other. this is shown by the lack of direct address that Chris Brown gives us. by him looking away and having his hood covering his eyes connotes that he thinks he is more important than the reader and that he deserves better than to look at us. The photo is a staged studio photo of Chris Brown. He is covering part of the masthead, which reads ‘the a-side’, with his head. This can connote that Brown is most powerful or more likely that the magazine are confident that their reader knows what page they are on and that they don’t need to tell the reader everything.
The sub-heading is featured in a banner, which is placed below the masthead. The banner features the logo of XXL at the far right. This is XXL advertising them and reminding the reader what they are reading. The rest of the banner is black with white writing and red punctuation and then to the right the red of the XXL logo splits it up. The colour scheme is the same throughout the whole magazine. It is effective as it is simple and they are very bold colours, so nearly any external colours from other pictures blend in with them or go with the colours.
Underneath the masthead and banner there is a black divider. This is used to split up the masthead and the rest of the content. Underneath the divider is a quote by Chris Brown. We know this as just underneath the quote, XXL has told us. By just putting a random quote from their interview creates enigma for the reader. This makes them want to read the magazine to see why they have used that quote.
There is a gutter just under the quote, which is empty space. The page numbers are in black, bold and sans serif writing, and next to it small title is the same style of writing. Under each title is a paragraph of writing explaining about the title to try and push the reader to read that story. This again creates enigma. The artists in the paragraph are in bold so they stand out more than the paragraph. This is done so the reader recognizes this more than the paragraph and they pick out the name and read it just for the name. The page numbers are written in ascending order to add a professional effect. The footer is similar to the banner. But instead of black and then red, this one goes red and black. The red box left of the footer is of a fast forward symbol. The black rectangular shape that goes across the bottom of the page contains by-lines of the photographer.
The whole contents page is quite spacious and simple, uses very few colours and simple fonts. This helps the reader understand the magazine a lot more as their isn’t much on the page that will confuse an audience. I believe that the audience age range for this will be 16 to around 24. This is because the magazine contains some strong language and explicit pictures
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