AS Reseach and Planning: Heat Magazine Cover Analysis

Heat Magazine

HEAT is an extremely popular celebrity gossip magazine. The masthead on this cover is written in lower case letters and is a bright red colour. Psychologically, red brings out conflicting emotions from passion and love to violence and warfare. Metaphorically, red both symbolise cupid and the devil. However, I believe that Heat decided to use it to grab attention; via the 'traffic light' advertising theory (red stands for stop and read me). Interestingly, the strap line is near toward the bottom of the page and has a 'tearing across' effect; the main image has an effect of the image being ripped in half like paper, with the signifier MELTDOWN! in capital letters and a black font. The black font contrasts with the white of the tearing mark. The word signifies that we usually have connotations with 'falling apart' and great downfall- it is a powerful word that grabs attention and urges the reader to read about it.

The cover uses four main colour schemes; red, black, yellow and pink. This is fairly unusual as covers rarely exceed a rule of three colours maximum on a cover, as it looks messy and too busy. The yellow has connotations with sunshine, and like red, has conflicting symbolism. Yellow denotes happiness and joy while it also has associations with cowardice and deceit. The black font used contrasts nicely with the white background it is presented in as black against white makes the white seem brighter, therefore good contrasting and boldness. The vibrant pink has connotations with femininity and is closely related to the colour red, have the same high energy and are sensual and passionate. The yellow and pink are commonly used in women's magazines, while the red is for grabbing attention and the black merely to create good bold contrasting.

The main image is of three people, Cher Lloyd, Cheryl Cole and Katie Waissel. They are all related to The X Factor, a show which at the moment dominates the media. The effect of having them on the cover tells the reader that the magazine is relevant to celebrity culture at the moment and appeals to fans of the show. The images are notably photoshopped onto one another, i.e. the images used are actually three different images. None of the women are looking at the camera, and seem to not be aware of their photo being taken. I can infer from this that they are paparazzi shots and not from a photoshoot or from the show. The effect of this is that as the magazine is a celebrity gossip magazine, there are photos inside that have not likely to have been touched up and catches celebrities at private times- the reader feels like they're seeing a personal side to the celebrities.

Aside from the main image and strap line, there are two more segments of content features. In the right hand corner is a picture of popular showbiz couple Katy Perry and Russell Brand. The heading is in a vibrant pink font written in capital letters on a bright yellow background. 7-Day is in a black font instead of pink, which gives the impression it is highlighted. The part below this has the signifier FULL DETAILS! which signifies that the magazine has all the knowledge and exclusives of the couples wedding day, which will urge fans of the couple or even cynics to purchase and relates back to the celebrity gossip aspect. The text also has denotations of flowers beside it. The flowers have connotations with romanticism, love and new life, linking with the content features of a wedding day. It also adds weight to the femininity side of the magazine, appealing to th target audience of females. At the top of the cover to the left has the signifier EXCLUSIVE! which has the same connotations mentioned before. Notably, the exclusive is written in bigger words than the actual content feature text. It is written in a white font on a red background, which has effective contrasting and creates boldness and the whole 'stop! and read me' technique.