Table of contents

 What is a table of contents?

In a magazine, there are a lot of articles to read, and flipping through the dozens of pages in the magazine to find a specific one can be a pain. Luckily, most magazines have two or three pages at the beginning that tell you where all the articles are. These pages are collectively called the table of contents (also 'contents' or 'TOC' for short)

This is an example of a table of contents from Wired magazine:

The page is headed with the name of the magazine, and the word "contents" so that readers can identify this section as the table of contents. There is also an image on the second page to set the theme. Each article is then listed with its page number and author next to it. This is a zoom-in on one of the articles:

As you can see, this makes it quite clear that the story "The Other Side of Indifference" is on page 20 and was written by Clive Thompson. So, if someone were looking for that article, the article sounded interesting to them, or they liked that author, they know exactly where to find it: page 20.

Here are some other examples of TOCs in tech magazines:

    

    (note: PC magazine also has descriptions of the                 articles)

All the tech magazine TOCs share some key elements such as the stylized name of the magazine at the top and some images to front the articles. Additionally, the article/page number/author sections are still there. And finally, some information about the magazine like publication date and volume number is tucked away near the edge.

However, despite these TOCs sharing many features, they are still very different in a lot of ways. Since there isn't any page content like an article taking up most of the page on a TOC it has the most opportunity to be stylized and is often one of the most defining parts of a magazine past the cover.

Fonts and colors

Most of the table of contents' text is black and written in a sans-serif font which is what you would expect from a tech magazine. There are some exceptions to this though. Wired uses a dark blue for the page numbers and author names to keep them separate from the names of the articles.

The Video Issue and PC Magazine both have some of their articles written in red text instead of black. However, they each do this for different reasons. The video issue just colors some of the text red for stylistic reasons and to separate the page numbers/author names from the article titles similar to Wired. PC Magazine, on the other hand, uses red text for the article names and page numbers to make them into headings for the description of the articles below them.

Sources

Behance. “WIRED Magazine TOC Redesign.” Behance, Wired, 11 Aug. 2019, www.behance.net/gallery/84053437/WIRED-Magazine-TOC-Redesign.

David. “Table of Contents: Research.” David Ogunyemi, 14 Apr. 2012, dav31d.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/table-of-contents-research.

“Table of Contents Magazine, Yearbook Layouts, Magazine Design.” Pinterest, The Video Issue, www.pinterest.com/pin/130674826660169803. Accessed 4 Apr. 2022.