TABLE OF WHAT?

March 22, 2017

     Now that my outline for the table of contents in finished, I need to make the article titles and the page numbers. The majority of each magazine uses the table to contents to focus on the main articles that are the strongest and most exciting to read. Since typically lifestyle/fashion magazines have up to 200 pages, I want to make sure that only the best articles and pages are featured under each category. My target audience is intending on reading only the most interesting parts of my magazine, so I’ll make sure they know which page to turn to see those. I also really want to include a large photo on the right side of the table of contents since I read in an article "The most visible area at that point is the outer part of the right page."

     Under “Beauty,” I want to have articles focused around different makeup and beauty hacks. I also want to have a spread based on the the trendy makeup, the least expensive makeup or drugstore finds, beauty dupes, Instagram make up looks put to the test, etc. My main focus is to make my audience, the late teens to young adults to want to read my magazine and look forward to reading it.

     Under “Health is Wealth,” I want to emphasize the importance of eating healthy and making your body feel right. I‘m going to have articles that include fast food made healthy, easy recipes that taste good, something on trendy food like acai bowls and green juice, most expensive food from restaurants around the world, etc.

     Under “Style,” I want to have a bunch of pages that relate to less expensive outfits, trendy outfits, prices of different clothes and where they are from, celebrity outfits with less money look alikes, etc. Each of these articles under this category is specifically important since this is where the “fashion” comes into play with the fashion/lifestyle genre. Since my target audience is going to be expecting high end quality content from my magazine all relating to the trendy fashion going on, I needed to step up my content, especially for this category.

     The next section is “Gossip.” This is a newer category not always incorporated into fashion/lifestyle magazines. I want to have this in my issue since my audience is around the same age for the gossip magazine genre; so I thought it would be a great idea to include that into my magazine to have them buy my magazine and never the gossip since mine has it all. I’m going to include news about celebrities such as scandal, relationships, new movies, celebrity drama, etc.

     The section called “Life” will include mostly home decor and room decorating with cute furniture and decorations found at stores such as Urban Outfitters and Anthropology, DIYs, exercise tips and tricks, useful things to just have, how to organize your life, something with clean work environment equals happy life, etc. 

     And last but not least, my favorite section is “Self Love.” This is going to focus on relaxation, ways to treat yourself, how to pamper yourself, ways to take time for yourself, yoga poses, spirituality decoded, monthly horoscopes, powerful women (power in numbers), etc. This is the overall message that I want my entire magazine to reflect and my readers to remember. It is very important to me to showcase this part of my magazine since women need to know their importance and power they have in the world. 

     I’m working so hard on this project and I’m so excited to show you my finished product of the table of contents soon! 

-Sami <3

Some Citations:
* Nikola. "Magazine Spreads – Good and Bad Practices." Magazine Designing. N.p., 04 May 2013. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.