The Main Cover Line
The main cover line usually in formed out of blocks of very eye-catching colours, and usually one word is used which in this case is "CHEAT", this is in the hope for people to see it from far away and be drawn to reading more into what this "cheat" is all about, the colours are usually very bright and in this case are Yellow and Pink with a shade of white, used to catch the attention of shoppers walking past.
Mastline
The mastline is the name of the magazine and is always the same with it's colours, the mastlines are usually red but are always colours which stand out and are often shadowed, this is to grab attention and for the audience who frequently purchases this magazine to feel a sense of consistency with this product, when creating ours will make it's mast head follow these conventions.
The Left Third
The left third is considered heavily when creating soap opera magazines, it often contains part of the main coverline and picture associated with that story as well as part of the masthead and usually some information about the price of the magazine of in this instance that there is "2 weeks revealed" which after looking deeper into this specific magazine Soaplife I noticed is a recurring inclusion into the top of the left third.
The Main focus
I have noticed after researching a number of soap opera and listings magazines, that the main focus is a picture of one to three character associated with the main cover line, they cover a large surface area of the magazine compared to the other conventional and important features of a magazine front cover of this type, which will help me when creating our own, also the idea of a lack of blank space will be important to make the magazine cover as true to life as possible.
The Cover lines
The other smaller cover lines run along the borders of the soap opera magazine in order for the reader to get sucked into the stories of multiple different soap operas, it is an excuse to include a small contents section to shown and to draw people into buying the book and read on if they are particularly interested in a soap that is the main coverline.
As you can see this magazine is very similar to the other magazine in looks, the soap opera listings magazines are very similar and have very tight conventions which if not kept to can cause the popularity to suffer, these are a lack of blank space, a variety of eye-catching pictures and colours used alongside many other techniques aimed at attracting buyers, interested in watching the soap operas featured.
The Main Cover Line/Focus
The main cover line for this magazine is snappy, with just two words in capital letters "IAN'S HELL!" it is a large Eastenders storyline for that week and has made it's way to being the biggest feature for this particular magazine, it is snappy and characters are intorduced with simply a picture and a first name within the cover line and focus, it is obvouisly for existing fans of the soap opera and not to attract a new audience for Eastenders, much like all the other coverlines located around the outside border of the magazine cover, it would work very well to attract an audience with the extremely detailed photograph of ian after departing for a long time with a scruffy looking beard, this is a rather large storyline and would get a large reaction from audience members.
The Left Third
The left third of this magazine has followed the conventions very well, it has a coverline visible within the left third which in order for people to see this eyecatching coverline and read it, get hooked in and purchase the book or at least pick it up and read the rest of the cover before buying it, we will need to incorporate and good use of the left third when we create our own magazine cover for our soap opera Maple Way.
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