One of the most important factors that make up a magazine front cover is the Masthead(the title). The title is usually printed in a large, bold font to grab the attention of an audience. The title of this particular magazine cover is "heat", the name of the magazine. This is nearly always occurs for every magazine. I think the editors of this particular magazine have given the name heat to target a specific audience of younger female viewers. It implies that the magazine contains "hot gossip". The masthead is usually accompanied by more then one cover line. The cover line is to inform the audience immediately of the contents which the magazine contains. Each cover line can be a different font, size and colour. This is often the situation as each individual cover line is representing a different story or piece of gossip told within the magazine. The images on the front of the magazine are probably the next biggest factor to grab their target audiences attention. For this magazine in particular, the image of the topless man at the top left of the page, would stand out to young girls mostly, this would be what the editors want. The other image in the bottom right, is clearly the main story of the magazine and there most probably is at least a 2 page spread on it. Also, they've used pulls and plugs such as "wedding bells for KIM"and "I CANT WAIT". This is a good technique as it has a peek preview of the occasion but doesn't give a whole explanation. They use this to entice the reader. The smaller images are displayed on the front cover to give an idea of what else the magazine contains, the smaller images don't cover as much text and in depth detail as the main story's do however, they they include them to not only fill out the magazine pages but to try and get the reader excited to find out about gossip. The bright colours on the magazine are associated with the masthead, so in this case the masthead is "heat" which associates with fire and hot things, hot things and heat are nearly always represented wit the colour red. (This could be known as a signifier and the signified) Sometimes the editors decide to display a competition, something to win or a free add. This persuades people to buy this particular magazine rather than another as they may think the contents of two magazines are the same however this one includes something free, (e.g.. a piece of makeup) therefore they would choose that magazine over the other. Magazines such as heat/gossip/blush/kiss all target the same audience and to do this they use brighter colours and vocabulary that will appeal to younger viewers. However magazines such as Vogue/ideal home/garden designs all use more sophisticated words and use a layout which is a lot more professional. The magazine always includes an issue number, date, barcode and price somewhere on the front cover usually in a smaller size print. The price of this magazine is a lot cheaper probably averaging at about £2.00 where as the more mature magazines with a target audience of the older generation probably average at about £4.00. This is shown on the front cover as it's a lot more tacky looking and doesn't have such a neat structure.