Evaluating My Music Magazine

Introducing you to Sugar Rush

On the stands in shops Sugar Rush will attract young girls aged between 11
and 15 . At this age girls haven’t got a favourite of genre they like the music
that is the most popular, usually those higher up in the charts. This music is
usually pop music, so when deciding what genre and audience for the
magazine, I decided on the age group 11-15 as I saw, their was only one
other music magazine for this age group, ‘Top of the Pops’.
However, pop music and the 11-15 age group was not my first choice for the
magazine, when I started this project I wanted to create a magazine for a
niche market. This niche market was Christian, as I had discovered some of
the artists I liked where primarily from this genre, when researching what I
could do within this genre I came across issues that I felt I could not work
round or through.
When deciding how to approach the creation of Sugar Rush I decided that I
should not only look at other music magazines, but teenage lifestyle
magazines as this would help me to create the right mode of address,
format, style and what to include. The teenage lifestyle magazines I looked
at were Sugar and Bliss.
When researching I found a magazine that ceased publication in 2006,
called Smash Hits, this was aimed at young teenagers (both girls and boys)
and was a pop magazine, with elements of a lifestyle and entertainment
magazines.
The Competition

Top of the Pops, published by BBC Worldwide.

Published monthly, base price of £2.25 an issue, with a circulation of 130,174.
Has been produced for 14 years, however the demand for this magazine, as
with all magazines, has been decreasing over the past few years. This
magazine is very hard to find in shops and inaccessible online unless you are
a member.
Other competition for this magazine would be teenage lifestyle magazines as
they also include music and entertainment news and information.

Sugar, published by Hachette Filipacci (UK) Ltd.

Published monthly, base price of £2.30 an issue, with a circulation of 158,835.
Sugar’s aim is to make their readers feel good about themselves.
Bliss, published by Panini UK.
Published monthly, base price of £2.30 an issue, with a circulation of 117,
112.
Popular with younger teenagers as seems mature, which young teenage
girls are always striving for.

All of these magazines usually give a free gift with every issue, usually
some type of make-up, bag, some times in summer flip flops or even a
bikini.
Researching the Competition

Sugar Magazine a
teenage lifestyle
magazine, a basis for
the lifestyle side of
Sugar Rush.

Top of the Pops Magazine,

popular teen music magazine,
a basis for Sugar Rush
 Smash Hits now
ceased publication
but used to be very
popular among
teenagers.

Bliss a popular
teenage lifestyle
magazine
The Reader

As earlier mentioned the reader of this magazine would be girls aged

between 11 and 15, at this age girls want to be as independent as possible,
they will try and spend the majority of their time out of the house. When out
of the house they enjoy hanging out with friends (round a friends house or
just in the local park), shopping. While out at some point agthey will listen to
music and usually this music will be pop, although by the e of 15 some girls
will prefer a particular genre.
In order to play their music the girls will need to have the latest technology,
as they will not want to be out done by their friends, however, they may also
want to be unique, so although they may have the same gadgets the colours
will be different, e.g. iPod – purple, blue, green, yellow etc.
When out shopping, the clothes, accessories and make-up they will buy will
be similar and in keeping with the latest fashions, however due to their
financial situations the majority of girls would be unable to afford designer
labels and trying to be independent they will want to buy their own (even if
it was given to them by their parents), so their favourite shops will be H&M,
New Look and Primark, especially Primark as the prices are cheap, but the
garments constantly change, so they are based on the latest fashions.
After deciding on the audience I did research into what they
liked.
Addressing and Attracting the Reader

When researching other magazines I discovered that teenage lifestyle

magazines take on the role of being a best friend or older sister to the reader,
where as male orientated magazines address the reader as a mate.
It is important to speak to the reader in a way that will appeal to them
otherwise they will not purchase the magazine, girls want advice and life
skills as well as the jokes. So when engaging the reader, the magazine needs
to come across as if they know the reader well.
When it comes to attracting girls to read the magazine all other teenage girl
magazines include free gifts relevant to their readers lifestyle and I believe
this is something that should occur with this magazine, for example I used a
free CD on the front cover of this issue.
The colours and layout will also affect whether the magazine will be chosen
above the rest.
How does your magazine represent a particular social group?

It represents a young group of girls who would like to be as mature and

sophisticated as the women who read the adult women magazines, however
they still want and are immature. They still love the bright colours and the
silliness of games and actions. They believe they are passionate about music
and try to convince themselves that they understand the true meaning
behind each song, although they are not quite experienced enough to have a
full understanding or passion.
Designing my Magazine

After deciding on the focus of the magazine and its target audience the next
thin I need to do was to come up with a name, there were several names I
considered, Minx, Bubblegum, Sugar Rush and Hear This. I felt that Minx and
Bubblegum were to childish for the reader’s as they wanted to seem mature
and sophisticated and these didn’t reflect this. Hear This I liked as girls talk
to each other about everything, however I thought this was too adult for the
readers. Sugar Rush felt like the right choice as it suggests immaturity in an
immature way.
Then there was the decision about the colour scheme for the magazine, again
it needed to be girly with a touch of maturity and pink was just too childish for
the image I wanted the magazine to project. Purple gives a sense of
femininity, while being a more sophisticated colour.
The font I chose to use consistently throughout the magazine is Courier as it
had a formal look to it but as the letters are rounded of it gives a slightly
informal flare to it.
What Media Institution might distribute Sugar Rush?

I believe that Bauer would be the best institution to distribute Sugar Rush as
they already distribute Q and Kerrang two other young/adult music
magazines. If they were to publish my magazine as well they would be able to
cover another segment of the market.
Also with their experience in the music magazine industry they would know
the best way to distribute my magazine.

Bauer is the largest privately owned publisher in Europe, publishing in

Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
Over 26 million adults read a Bauer title.
9 Bauer magazines are sold every second in the UK.
Front Cover

I analysed several different magazine front covers (including

Top of the Pops, Bliss, Kerrang, Sugar) in order to generate
different ideas for my magazine.
Front Cover

My final design for my front cover, turned out better than I thought it would. I
wanted to keep the front cover eye catching but simple. The background of
the main image meant that I managed to do this as, if there was much more
on the front cover it would look to busy. #
The title of the magazine is in a different colour and font to everything else on
the page which means it stands out. The other articles are all different fonts, I
did this so that it would draw the readers eye to each one and the main
article being in a different colour and larger means the reader knows the
biggest article.
The two other images in the bottom right hand corner allow the reader to
know what else is going to be included in the issue.
I wanted to have the price, barcode and date so that it did not interfere with
the front cover, so I put it in a ‘box’ that allowed it to look good without
drawing much attention away from the rest of the magazine cover. I used the
colour purple so it was in keeping with the rest of the magazine.
Contents Page
I again analysed several different magazine contents pages .
Contents page

My final design for my contents page, was the first idea that I came up with,
this was the only page that I had a clear vision of what I wanted for it to look
like.
I wanted this page to be minimalistic, with a mature look to it, because even
if girls of this age wouldn’t want the magazine to read as mature as the
contents page suggests it would, they like the idea that it could be.
I used the font Courier for the whole page and the majority of the text is
purple which I felt it is important to keep the magazine’s signature colour
very much visible throughout the magazine.
The prominent image looks very classy, where as the inset image which has a
more immature pose, this enables the reader to see that the magazine is
mature with elements of immaturity that entice the readers.
The separation between the articles makes the contents clear and easy to
read, so the readers don’t get bored trying to find the article they want to
read.
With other magazines the ‘Who’s Who’ tends to appear on the contents
page and when designing this page it looked to be the right thing to be
adding on the contents page.
On every page of the magazine I thought the website address should be in
the bottom corner and I felt the contents page shouldn’t be an exception.
Double Page Spread

Analysis of other magazines double page spreads.

Double Page Spread

My final design for my double page spread, was completely differently from
the what I envisioned it being at the beginning of this project.
When I started to design this I didn’t know where to start, but as soon as the
idea of the star shooting across the two pages was formed, everything fell
into place from there it just seem to come together.
I knew that I didn’t want two pages of writing or even alot of text spread over
two pages as I realised that the readers would not want to read that amount
of text. The fact file was a way to give the readers the information they would
want to know about the artist clearly and quickly.
As this is the main article for this issue it needed to stand out from the others
in the magazine this is why I used several different colours in order to keep
the readers attention, although I used different colours the fonts I kept fairly
similar so they didn’t make the pages look overly busy.
The pictures on the second page I placed them slightly slanted so that
they didn’t make the page look boring with lots of edges.
The title and sub-headings in the left hand corner were the last things I
added, so that I could get the proportions right for the rest of the page.
I decided to use stars on this page, rather than hearts or anything else, as
the artist is a star and they have are more mature compared to hearts
and I kept these to the colour of purple so the magazine’s signature is
continually running throughout the
magazine.
Images Used
How would I change my magazine and the preparation leading up to it?

If I had the chance to do this task again I would have spent more time
concentrating on planning my pages especially my front cover as I felt it
wasn’t the best it could have been. I would have liked to have organized and
structured my progress in a more productive way.
If I had more time I would have liked to have gained more experience on
Photoshop in order to improve my skills, as I believe this would have enabled
me to create a higher quality magazine. Photoshop has been the hardest
thing for me, throughout this whole project.
Overall I am pleased with the way the front cover, contents and double page
spread has turned out, as at the beginning of this task didn’t think I would be
happy or able to carry out the task with the results I managed to achieve.