The document provides an analysis of the layout, design elements, and content of two magazine covers - Heat magazine and Total Film magazine. For the Heat magazine cover: It has a cluttered layout with many stories highlighted. The masthead uses a heavy serif font in red to draw attention. Bright colors like yellow, red and pink are used to grab attention. It mainly features candid celebrity photos from paparazzi. For the Total Film magazine cover: It has a simple layout with just two cover lines. The large movie image of Avatar is the clear focal point. The masthead is in a heavy sans serif font in white to stand out against the blue background.

1. Critical approaches 2
Grace kennedy

2. Heat mag

3. Heat (front cover)
Layout
The cover is pretty cluttered.
There are 5 different stories
surrounding the front cover:
a story about Calvin and
Taylor, Kylie minogue, great
British bake off, the bang
theory’s couple and victoria
and David Beckham.
They is also a section on the
cover about fashion coats on
the bottom right hand side.
Despite the cluttered layout
each part of the cover is
easily readable. I think this
cluttered layout is designed
to show the audience that
the magazine is packed with
information the audience will
want to know; it makes it
look interesting and
appealing.
Masthead
The masthead of the magazine is
‘heat'. It is in low case letters and
uses a heavy weighted serif font. I
think that the masthead is of heavy
weight to bring draw attention to it,
they want to make the audience
aware of the names so they can
buy it again. The serif font makes
the masthead look appealing
because it is different and looks
more interesting than using san
serif fonts. The lower case letter
make it softer because it is a
womens magazines. Also I feel like
the masthead doesn’t need any
captials because the font is heavy
enough and the font is different.
The leading of the text is very small.
The colour of the masthead is red; I
think the red makes it noticeable as
red is a nice bold colour. Also I think
the colour red is symbolic to the
name of the masthead because
when I think of heat i think of fire
and the colour red. Heat also
spreads quickly if you think of it in
terms of fire, just like the gossip in
the magazine.

4. Heat (front cover)
Colors
The cover uses bright colors like
yellow, red and a neon pink/orange.
I think these colours will grabs the
audiences attention when they see
the magazine, in a shop for example.
There is also white and black
featured on the cover. I think they
have used white and black for the
reason that they fit in with the
magazines colours scheme.
Secondly using white and black in
the text and the graphic will not
attract attention from the bright
colours already on the page. Thirdly
white and black are opposing
colours so they create contrast in
the text on the cover. For example
there is a black box behind the white
text which says ‘Taylor & Calvin’. This
makes the text stand out; the white
looks brighter against the black
background because they are
contrasting colors.
Pictures
The pictures used on the
front cover are mainly
papparazzi pictures as
celebrities are featured on
the cover. This means the
pictures aren’t always the
highest quality. For example
the picture of Taylor is clearly
a paparazzi shot because she
doesn’t look like she wants
the picture to be taken; she
has her mouth open slightly
and her hand towards the
camera. This picture of Taylor
isn’t the most flattering
either; paparazzi normally
don’t take the best pictures
of celebrities.
Also David and Posh appear
to be avoiding the camera by
looking down or a different
way so this looks like a
paparazzi picture.

5. Pictures
The magazines uses a lot of candid photography
and paparazzi of celebrities as that is what
audience want to know what stars are up to. For
example the magazine tyga and kylie were
photographed on ‘a boring date’. These type of
pictures aren’t normally high quality as the
photograph may have to zoom in or hide to get
the image they need for a story. An example of
this is on page 43, which is a article about
whether Jon snow is dead in Game of thrones
and there is a picture of kit Harington (the actor
who plays john snow) filming new scenes on the
25 of september.
Some pictures are directly taken from
the celebrities social media accounts
like twitter and Instagram to use it to
back up a story and say something
about it.

6. Pictures
It also features photographers pictures at
events. For example emily rata was
photographed at an event. Usually the
magazine do this because they want to
praise or critique their fashion or talking
about the event. I think the magazine
include this because most women have
an interest in fashion and usually pass
comment and take notice of what other
women are wearing.
It also features professional
photography images for the
advertising segments of the
magazine , however the magazine
does not create this ,it Is create by
the brand. I feel this is good
because it makes the audience
aware of new products or existing
products. This issue features
advertisements from McDonalds,
Philips, boots, silm fast and sally
hanson.

7. Colour scheme of magazine
The color scheme in the
magazine is not as bright as the
front cover. I think this as
because the front has to grab the
audiences attention. As I have
mentioned it uses bright yellow,
red and neon orange on the
cover. Inside the magazine it has
appeared to use more bold
colors in the text of the graphics
instead of harsh bright colors.
The colors used are hot pink,
deep pinky/red, light turquoise,
orangy/yellow,yellow gold etc. I
find these much more appealing
as they are still eye catching but
in your face like the ones on the
covers.
inside
The cover

8. Writing style
The way the magazine write is pretty informal but some parts are more formal. The magazine makes jokes like ‘we’ll
wait and see if there’s a Big Bang in their future’ which is a pun because it referring to a story (page 30) about Big Bang
Thoery actress Kaley Cuoco. The joke could have been made in a sexual term, which is clearly informal. Also it uses the
abbreviation ‘we’ll’ ,meaning ‘we will’ so it directly speaking to the audience.
I feel like the magazine uses informal language to make the audience feel more comfortable because it is likely the
women who read are not going to be formal all the time. I think the informality makes the text more interesting
because it is boring if the audience can’t have a laugh, they will engage more with the text. Another example is the
magazine comparing kylies suede dress with a car cloth.
Despite the informality of the some language, the magazine still has formality. The audience won’t take the
information given seriously if the magazine joke all the time.

9. Text
The font inside the magazine is a
mix of serif and sans serif font.
Some articles use sans serif fonts
in their heading and subheading
but other have a mix of sans
serif and serif. The text of the
article appears to be all serif
font.
I think having both sans serif and
serif on a page is a good idea.
Sans serif fonts tend to read
more clearly but aren’t very
exciting to look at, whereas serif
sometimes may not be as easy
to read as sans serif font but it is
different and more visually
appealing. The mix of the two
different fonts provides a good
balance for the audience.
Page 39 use a both sans serif and serif in the
headings. The heading writes ‘Kate hooks up
with a jonas brother!’ in serif text but the
subheading in sans serif font says ‘she’s
ditched rock stars for a disney kid’.

10. Text
The image to text ratio is varies sometimes there 60% image and 40% text; there
always appear to be more text. I think the magazine uses more image than text
because images are obviously more visually appealing than looking at a paragraph of
text. Also I feel like, the majority of the time the text is describing a image. Both text
and image are really important parts of the magazine. Using pictures is almost like
giving truth or evidence to a story.

11. Total film

12. Total film cover
The masthead ‘total film’
is at the top of the page
like most other
magazines. The colour of
the masthead is white so
it stands out against the
blue coloured
background. The font of
the picture is sans serif
so it is very clear and
bold. The weight of the
masthead is very heavy
but I feel that this makes
it stand out more. Also,
people will instantly
know what the magazine
is about because it is
called ‘total film’ and I
think the heavy weight of
text makes it visually
clear to the audience.
Layout
The layout is tidy because
there isnt really a lot of
elements on the page.
There is only two
coverlines, which are
‘avatar’ and ‘a decade in
the making…’ .
I think they have kept the
cover simple because they
dont want to give much
away. Avatar was a well
anticipated film anyway,
due to it being so expensive
to produce; the film cost
costing over 1 billion,due to
CGI.Also, I think that they
have used minimal cover
lines because they wanted
the audience to focus on
the image. I feel this cover
symbolises the significance
of films moving image and
the high quality of it.

13. Total film cover Colours
All the colour on this
magazine cover fit well
together. The colour of the
image is mainly blue. ‘total
film’ is written in white,
which contrasts against
the deep blue colour but
still looks good together.
The coverline ‘avatar’ is
also in white. The white
makes the coverlines
stand out on the page
because it is very different
from the blue background
image. The cover line ‘a
decade in the making…’ is
in sliver so like the white,
it fits in with the page but
it doesn’t stand out as
much as white coverlines.
I think using the colour
may symbolises the long
amount of time it has
taken to make the film
,which was a decade (ten
years).
Hierachy
When I look at this front of this
magazine the first thing I see is
the avatar image. The image is
very large and is situated in the
centre of the page so it grabs
the readers attention instantly. I
think they wanted it to be the
focal point of the cover because
it is a blockbuster film, which is
very famous for its motion
picture.it also the main article
of the magazine so it is very
important that it is the focus of
the cover. The next element I
see is the masthead due its
large scale, weight and position
towards the top of the page. I
think the magazine has made it
one of the main focuses of the
cover because it is the brand
name; the magazine will want
the brand name to be
reckgonisable so the audience
can purchase the magazine
again.

14. Pictures
There are lots of movie
screen shots in total film
magazine because this
will give the audience
sneak peak of what the
film looks like. This may
persuade the audience to
watch a film ,if a film
visually appeals to them.
For example, page 74 to
80 contains many
screenshots of the film
avatar. This will hopefully
make the audience
excited to see avatar and
then go the cinema and
see the film.
The magazine also
contains behind the
scenes images
,which show how
the film was
created. This could
give the audience
more of the
understanding of
the film its self and
the work which has
gone in to the film.
For example in the
avatar spread, there
are picture of the
actor sam
Worthington and
the dircector.

15. Colour scheme.
The colour scheme of
the magazine is pretty
bright and bold. In this
issue, yellow, red ,blue,
black and white.
The colours stand out
well so they attract
attention easily ,without
being too bright or in
your face.
I’ve noticed that the
magazine adapts it
colour scheme to fit the
movies colour scheme
to fit the movies colour
scheme ,which makes it
all fits together nicely.

16. Comparison

17. Content: Film VS Gossip
The magazines are different topics because is
gossip and the other is film. Heat predominantly
focuses on the life of celebrities where's total film
focuses primarily on films. When comparing these
magazines they will be instant difference but they
are likely to be similaries because they are part of
same media type (magazines).
Despite the magazines having different topics,
they both have purposes to entertain the
audience. Films give the audience entertainment
and heat have an entertainment section ,
including films reviews.
Also both magazines features celebrities in their
magazines. Heat features celebrities from all kinds
of industries however total film features
celebrities from the film industries like
actors/actresses and film directors.

18. Colour scheme
I think both use bright and bold
colours to grabs the audiences
attention.
However, I have noticed a big
difference in the covers of the
magazines.