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.