Magzines in my genre: Smash Hits

Smash Hits is a magazine produced fro pre-teen girls whom are interested in modern popular music and celebrities in general. Although this is a lifestyle magazine aswel as a music magazine, it fits into the genre of the type of magazine i want to produce.

The title, 'Smash Hits' appeals to the audience by having onomatopoeia, the loudness of music, fashion and teenage life is almost immediately screamed at us using the first word, the second word again is a very powerful word which refers to something popular and successful. The title has also been rounded off by using a screamer, again backing up the loudness of the words themselves. The title is rounded off by being printed in a sans-serif bubbly font making it appealing to the target audience by making sure that it doesn't look too formal, as this isn't what the audience is about.

The pink colour scheme on the front cover connotes a bubbly girly atmosphere, also the continuous use of the sans-serif font connotes a youthful and modern front. Despite the cover being conventionally right, it looks very busy, this is something to be aware of and remember during the production of my magazine as this could make the audience believe that the magazine is disorganised and messy throughout, again despite this, Smash Hits was a very successful magazine running for 28 years!

Within the magazine we would expect to find articles on artists within the top 40, fashion advice on how to look like your favourite celeb (most likely cheryl cole or miley cyrus) and make-up, hair, nail advice etc. The musical and fashion advice is a main selling point of the magazine. These articles give the girls advice on how to be like their idols, and what to listen to in order to become popular, and like all the other girls in their age group, 'Tweens'. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tween).

Smash Hits addresses it's audience by appealing to their youthful, girly and slightly cheeky side. It does this by connoting a slightly outrageous and wild lifestyle, this is done firstly by the layout of the cover itself, the pictures are on a slant, also there is lots of bleeding of the pictures, coverlines and other features on the cover. Secondly the use of sans-serif font connotes a generation that does not conform and doesn't want everything to look neat, this all appeals to a 'tween', as all they really want to do is fit in with the stereotype.

The photographs on the main cover are all famous. They are people which interest the audience of this genre, for example, Chantelle (blondie in the bottom left corner), she appeals to the younger generation of girls because she, to them, is a perfect role model, she is famous, blond, pretty and has rather large breasts. These people have been placed on the cover of this magazine for one purpose only, to attract the audience of 'tween'. Also, again, the pictures have been laid out in a slightly manic fashion, i think that this is to again connote an atmosphere of cheekiness.

The audience of Smash hits would be girls, 'tweens' this is relates to girls ranging between the ages of 9 to 13. due to their age it would be impossible to give them a reading on the jicnars scale, but we could look at their parents, the parents of Smash Hits readers, they would probably be between an E up to a C2. The parents of the readers of Smash hits would be Aspirers and maybe traditionalists, wanting to keep children as children and have everything the same way as it was when they were young. I also think that they would want to aspire to be more than they already are, they are not happy with their social place and would want to move up in the world. The actual readers of the magazine, the 'tween', has attitude and wants to have the same pencil case as the popular girl, and if she doesn't have 'that' skirt by next week she'll be a 'social retard', or so she tells her parents...

The contents page in the issue of the magazine that i have is a very boring and dull one. It is the Take That special, which we have to take into consideration, as it will not fit in with a normal magazine of Smash Hits. The layout has been designed in a simple three column form, on the left we have the whole column filled up with text, simply white text on a black background. The next two columns are filled with the actual contents themselves. The only colours used are red, black and white, connoting an incredibly boring atmosphere. Although there are some pictures on the page they are very well organised and set up just one on top of another. The contents page does have a couple of conventions that don't connote complete boredom, on the picture they have used a larger text to show page numbers, this shows that the producers aren't completely unaware of the age group that reads Smash Hits. But saying this, this is a special issue that is directed at an audience that like Take That, which would generically be older. Again to contradict this, the creators should have realised that an audience that reads Smash Hits, would still like something other than a boring colour scheme to look at.

Looking at different magazines: Mixmag

Mixmag is a magazine published for 'Danceheads'.

It incorporates articles on the Dance music scene and interviews with DJ's and fans. The picture on the cover connotes a slightly crazy scene with lots of shouting, drinking and maybe some amphetamines. The askew cover and strap lines also connote a crazy time, it makes me think of a Saturday night out at a glowstick rave. The masthead is black, which could look boring, but with the background being a bright yellow it creates a clash effect making the cover can overall connotation of a wild time, this is furthered by the bright blue straplines.

Readers of mixmag would definitely be hedonists and post-modernists, they are radicals and may even be underachievers. The jicnars scale would see them at everything from an E to a C2, although some readers maybe at university, studying to be a higher reading. The age of readers would range from 17 to 25.

They look like this...

Looking at different magazines: Kerrang

Looking at another magazine, Kerrang.

Kerrang is directed at people who enjoy rock, metal and punk music. Kerrang includes many artist interviews, reviews, tour dates and even posters and calenders. The magazine doesn't really have a specific age group to target at, but as most of the featured bands are quite young (18-26) Kerrang aim more so to this age group. But after researching the magazine i have found that they also publish articles on older bands such as Metallica, which would include a much older audience. so we see that Kerrang targets different age groups but all of them will be interested in the same thing, rock music.

Kerrang is priced at (£2.20) which positions it next to NME, as price defines where a magazine sits in market. Kerrang is sold at this fairly cheap price because it sells a large ammount, therefore the price doesnt have to be too high.

A reader of Kerrang sits at around an E possibly up to a C2, but more likely a D. They are Post-modernists and Mareialists, they like to go out alot and work comes later. They would be Radicals and Underachievers, caring mostly about thier friday night. Kerrang would also be very passionate about thier music, they would talk about it most of the time, and when they're not talking about it they're watching top gear in thier mother's home, in the bedroom they've lived in since birth, mother has just put the roast dinner on after ironing your work clothes.

You look a little bit like this...

Looking at different magazines: Shout

The first magazine that i am going to look at is Shout. this magazine is a little like mine will become in that it is directed at pre-teens (aswell as slightly older teenagers). The magazine has many different articles and features throughout the pages, including singers actors and true stories written in by the readers themselves. Shout is a fairly well priced (£2.30) magazine.
It is mainstream and would only include globally famous people and artists signed to major labels...
It is definitely aimed at younger people, we can tell this by the colours, fonts and language used. Shout would be a good magazine to get ideas and tips from for my magazine. the readers of this magazine would be young and love Miley Cyrus, High School Musical and everything Disney. The exact age group would be around 9-14, female, reasonably middle class to upper.
Although this is a young teen magazine, we can say that the readers are most probably hedonists, with parents probably being traditionalists or post-materialists, and they would probably check the magazine throughout before giving it to their 'sweet' child, to make sure no sexual or offensive content is inside. With the readers being young people, school age, we can't really give them a jicnars scale reading, but their parents would be from C2 up to a B.

Ideas for my magazine:

Having been firstly set the task i have had many different ideas of what to do, my first idea was to create the music magazine in a genre which i am fairly comfortable with. for example, i could easily do rnb, as i listen to mostly rnb music, but after reviewing this i decided that it would be better to go out of my comfort zone and pursue a very different genre to ones that i would be comfortable with. i came up with some ideas of blues, jazz and country music. I decided not to do these genres as i found all of them stereotypically related to rather boring people, colours and places (no offence to listeners of this). I eventually came up with an idea of something which i found that i could write alot about and could create a bright and interesting magazine, with which i would be comfortable. My final idea is to create a music magazine for pre-teen girls. The colour scheme will involve pinks and purples and will incorporate information about today's young pop idols.

Whilst creating my media product i have learnt how to use Photoshop correctly and how to use conventions to improve my media product, for example feathering. I have also learnt how to use Quark express to create a contents page correctly by setting up the guidelines which fit in with other media products, this was important to ensure that the product was actually viewed as a professional magazine.

We attracted and addressed our audience firstly by making sure that the main cover shot tells alot about the magazine, for instance the model on the front cover has the 'geek' glasses on but also has a fashionable aura about him and has fashionable clothes on. Then we made sure that we had features inside the magazine which would attract our target audience, for instance the interviews and information about nights out. Also we made sure that the cover didn't look bland and that it had a consistent exciting colour scheme which would be sure to interest people who simply glanced at it. We also addressed our audience by making sure that we used language that was suited to a teenager, and making sure that we didn't use words which were too long. We also made sure that the text got right down to the point and didn't dwindle around it.

The audience for this media product would mainly be for students of the ages 16-19, some that are already at the college and some that are thinking about joining the college. Although these people would be the ones that we are directing our main sell too, we would also assume that some parents, guardians and people who live in the area of the college would want to read the magazine in order to keep up witht he local news and be able to see what the stundents are geting up to.

A school council which is dedicated to media and advertising of the college may distrbute this magazine in order to make people aware of the college. The council may want people to know that the college isn't completley about academic subjects and that it has a view on social life too. They may also want to distribute this magazine to ensure that students and people in the local area know the news of the college in order to keep updated and aware of whats going on.

Our media rpoduct represents particular social groups by having someone of a certain age and wearing particularly abstract clothing to represent this. The boy on the front cover of the magazine is wearing fashoinable clothing and has traditional 'geek' glasses on, challenging the normal stereotype, this tells us that the magazine has a studious theme, but isn't too serious. Also we have an interview with Dizzee Rascal inside , this would indicate to the readers that this magazine is dedicated to the type of person that would enjoy this music, but again, this is challenged by the fact that other straplines and features in the magazine are dedicatd to other things such as nights out in worcester, therefore making it suitable for nearly every type of person.

Our magazine uses many of the traditional conventions of media products, for instance, we have used a masthead, a puff and inverted straplines, we decided to use these because they add character to the cover and ensure that people know that it is actually a magazine. We have developed on the way that media products normally look because we have used quite a bit more text than most magazine covers would. We decided to do this because we felt that as long as the font was of an appropriate size and we still had lots of the main cover shot showing, that it would be fine to do this.

Front Cover

Ideas...

After thought and research i have come up with some primary ideas of my magazine. Firstly i will note the colour scheme, i have decided that i will use purples and greens for my main theme, i decided on these colours because they look good together and as i am planning on using bright shades it will ensure that the cover looks especially interesting. The cover will show a MCU of a student enjoying student life.The masthead will use a graffiti bubble font, as this is quite different and is ascociated with younger adults. I want the cover to have big bold straplines, some of which inverted, to ensure that they are noticed. The cover will have a puff with the full name of the college and the date of issue. i want my main cover to connotate the following points, and i will do this using the conventions above; i want the reader to think that the college is academic, fun, lively, energetic, professionally exciting and mainly, that it is worth going here. The fonts on the cover (excluding the masthead) will follow through out the magzine, to keep the main theme constant, this will also apply with the colour scheme.

Influence from my research

From my research i have found that most college magazines use formal photographs on the front cover, i don't think that these reflect college life competley truthfully, yes, college is an academic place but all students here like to have fun too, and i will use what i have learnt from the photos on my cover. i have also noticed that each magazine tends to follow a colour scheme, these always look good and show a sense of formality, i will use this idea to make my magazine have an edge of formality, but, hopefully with the colours i will use, it will look exciting and interesting. on the other hand i have also noticed that the magazines i have looked at dont pay much attention to the straplines, whereas i want the straplines to be bold and interesting to look at.

Research

This magazine poses a very formal front. To denotate the picture, it shows a girl, looking very relaxed lying on a table, with her head resting on books. The masthead is a sans-serif font, although, it is quite a formal one. The main attention of the cover is the coverline, "class of 2009", prehaps indicating that this magazine is intended for people leaving the college. The colour theme is a relativley plain one, using mustard yellow and white, which connotes a formal attitude. The straplines are small and look quite unimportant. The picture of the girl does look very relaxed, the background of the picture indicates to us that she is lying in a quite extravagant room, prehaps having a break from studying, also, she is resting her head against soem books, also indicating this. Also this picture may relate to the "class of 2009" coverline, she could be leaving the college, and this picture is showing the rest she is taking now that she has finished college. The straplines are quite dark and dont look very important, showing us that the picture is the main focus of the cover.










The first things that i notice about this cover are the mast head, the largest strapline and the picture. The masthead is a sans-serif font and it is very large, drawing our attention to that immeadiatley. The girl in the picture looks very interested in what she is doing, the main picture obviously relates to the main strapline "Doing science at Beloit". The other straplines look rather insignificant in comparison. The cover suggests to us that this is a very academic college, and that the students are very intellectual. It also suggests to me that the students who read this magazine may care more about thier studies than anything else. The main picture causes us to sterotype, but on the other hand it causes us to challenge sterotype as society normally relates males to science, therefore this picture has a positive feminist effect, this may not have been deliberate. Also this picture may attract more female readers.

The masthead on this magazine follows a sans serif font, this dennotes a less formal type of magazine, which in turn connotes a tpyical college based magazine. The red/orange colour dennotes a sun like image with the blue background to give it that sunny affect, this cannotes an inviting colour as the red/orange portrays a more warm feeling to the magazine to go along with the main picture. The main sell dennotes a young girl playing tennis revealing a large area of her backside, behind the picture you see that the crowd is full of young males who are all eager to see this young girl. this cannotes a tpyical attitude of college boys which is to chase after girls. Notice that the teacher/ umpire has been blocked out by the writing maybe to portray a level of disobedience. The lady in the 'C' of college denotes an low dressed women who is wearing a mortar board. This maybe cannotes a different way of looking at education, a way of showing boys that learning isnt just for the stereotype 'geeky girls' however for the more attractive ones. This magazine also portays a very stereotypical view that all boys are gazing over the girl playing tennis.

me and alex are SO excited about being together 4 hours and forty minuetes a week. Wow.