Research- Magazine covers

Soap magazines portray soaps and their characters and their storylines as if they are the real lives of people, in a similar way to how celebrities are always shown and talked about in magazines. It means that these magazines are a main way of soaps getting known and talked about through gossip, and this is important for the soap getting an audience.

This is a photo of a magazine cover which I have uploaded. I aim to analyse this magazine cover in order to understand better the conventions of an average soap magazine so that I can create my own.

Large character photos are used to take up space against a white background. There are warm/hot colours used for the bold-fonted headings to make the writing and the story stand out against everything else. 'NEW AGONY!' and 'PREGNANT!' are only small tabs against the much larger headings and photos, but are in all-capitals and on bright orange tabs which works in making them stand out.

The masthead 'InsideSoap' is in bright red block text to stand out completly from the rest of the magazine, so that the customer makes no mistake about what magazine they are purchasing.

Sad facial expressions within the images emphasize daunting captions such as 'Reunited-then torn apart FOREVER!' and 'PREGNANT! ...by a dead man!'

Smaller juxtapositioned images add room for more stories and therefore more information, and more more the eye to look at, making the viewer want to buy the magazine because it has alot of information in it, and they are therefore getting more for their money.

The huge puff 'HEARTBREAK' across the magazine diagonally catches the eye immediatly and draws the audience into being intressted in the storylines given away in the magazine.

The white background at the top means that everything else stands out from it, and everything catches the eye so that nothing blends in with anything else.

The pug in the top right corner is brightly coloured and has a circle around it. This ensures that it gets noticed quickly- and the viewer sees it and believes what it says. In this case, the viewer wants to purchase the magazine because it says 'First for BIG soap news!' which makes the viwer think that this magazine will offer them the best information possible within soap magazines.