Magazine Cover

Using the magazines as reference and my annotations, I created my own magazine front cover. This was important for me as it allowed me to deepen my understanding of what soap magazines include and gave me the chance to be creative. The first thing we did is think of different, and stereotypical, scenarios and have the students in our class pose as the characters in those situations. The creation of my magazine front cover helped me in understanding the kind of characters that usually appear in soaps.

The next step was to put thse images on photoshop, an editing programme I had only little experience with, so playing around on it meant that I could try out different tools and further my skills.

Like most tv magazine front covers, I used a light blue background because it doesn't take away from the foreground. Pale blue is a colour that can appeal to both genders, and so both male and females should fel comfortable reading it.

I put two of the images I edited onto the magazine cover, as they were going to be the characters included the main story revolved around. I made sure both images took up about 60% of the page. The characters are the main selling point, as they would usually be characters from a popular soap, and so the audience would be curious as to the situation they're in.

Advertisements and competitions are common in magazines, and so I included a pug with the words 'Your chance to win!' and an image of an exotic beach, advertising the chance for the audience to win a holiday. The competition would entice possible readers to purchase the magazine as everyone likes free things.

The target audience for tv magazines are usually female, most likely middle aged women and housewives, so because of this, I used bright colours like fuschia pink and orange. But I wanted it to be suitable for men as well, so I balanced the colours with black and white text for the smaller stories that are aimed at both genders.