Case Study: Mixmag.

Case Study: Mixmag.

Mixmag is a popular magazine in dance and club music. The median age of a Mixmag reader is 26 - 72% male, 28% female and they tend to be urban and single. They have a high disposable income and a high propensity to spend it on: nights out, clothes, tunes, the latest mobile and MP3 player. Nearly 80% do not read another music magazine and they spend little time watching TV, especially at weekends. Development Hill publishes Mixmag . They are an individual publishing company from London, Mixmag is the only magazine they publish but they offer it across a wide range of media platforms to attract a wider audience and bring in as much money as possible from this one magazine. 
  

The front cover of Mixmag includes a image of a featured artist inside the magazine. The shot type of the artist 'Tiga' is a medium shot, this shows half of the body. This is when the shot is taken from above the head to just below the waist, this allows the audience to get to know the artist more closely by viewing their facial expressions and body language. The colours used on the front cover help attract its audience, this is because bright colours such as pink and blue are normally worn when going clubbing, therefore the colour scheme throughout the magazine and front cover matches the genre of music the magazine is aimed at (dance and club music). The lighting on Tiga's face is very dull as the hat he is wearing creates a shadow onto his eyes, this signifies an element of 'mystery' and makes the reader want to buy the magazine as they want to find out more. The baseball jacket Tiga is wearing looks as though it is silk, silk is a very expensive material therefore this must mean that Tiga has a lot of pride in his appearance just like the typical audience for the magazine, in addition to this baseball jackets are trending in fashion, this concludes Tiga keeps up with fashion trends as well as good quality clothing. Mixmag includes a list of other popular artists featured within the magazine, ensuring readers that they have their moneys worth of content inside, this signifies to the reader that the magazine has taken its time to carefully select important artists of the specific genre. The cover line 'PLUS' on the front of Mixmag shows that the magazine has more to offer. The font of the masthead is always the same however the colour varies according to its background, this makes it easy for a loyal audience to identify the magazine, but also it allows new readers to identify the name as the font is very simple. The sky line is used to promote the magazine as being 'the worlds biggest dance & club culture magazine'. The font of the skyline is very simplistic and white making it stand out well against the teal background. In addition to font, the baseball jacket Tiga is wearing is light pink which matches the font colour of all the cover lines and masthead, making the image and text coordinate nicely as its easily matched together. 

The format of the contents page is very clear as its has been split up into 5 sections (cue, features, fashion, tunes and directory) this makes is easy for the reader to navigate through the magazine, this is suitable for the target audience as adults do not like wasting time. "Contents" is clearly placed at the top of the page informing the reader that this is what the page is for, if it wasn't there it would be hard to tell that it is a contents page since contents page's are normally one page. Also the font used is bold and white and is written in a font similar to one that is used to promote night clubs on leaflets etc. This is an example of comparison and link of the genre of the magazine. Multiple sub images are used on the contents page to help make navigating easier as a reader. Each picture contains a page number with it as the picture represents an article in the magazine, the pictures include a famous musician or subject such as a girl clubbing or a wide shot of a concert audience making it easy for the reader to establish this. The images used are very bright against the black background making the reader notice the imaged articles rather then the sections provided. The contents page of Mixmag is a double page spread with columns ascending on either side, it is aligned in columns, making it easier for readers to locate content within. This could also signify that readers of Dance magazines are very organised and structured just like the layout of the magazine. Lastly there is a main colour scheme of black and white, this makes the magazine look more simple and music focused. The front cover mentions 'club culture, and the contents page reflects that since clubs are very dark just like the background of the contents page.  

The double page spread of a featured article I have chosen is called 'four play' and is about Gui Borrato's forth album. The article has been structured like a story as it talks about his first album right up until his most recent and he is addressed in 3rd person throughout. The heading is 'four play' and it is a play-on-word by using 'four' instead of 'fore' this creates a sense of humour as it has an ambiguous meaning. The layout in comparison to the image is that the text is very small and insignificant. This could tell us that the main focus is the artist rather than what he has to say since. as he dominates half of the double page spread. The article is laid out into three columns which are placed in the middle of one page this looks very simple but yet effective because no one has time to read a long article especially adults that work. The colour scheme of the article is mainly electric blue, neon blue and pale yellow this has connotations of technology and evolution since colours like these are used mostly for things such as technology, ensuring the reader that the article is new and up to date just like technology. The image used of Gui Borrato is a close up, this is a shot taken of a person’s head from just above the head to the top of the upper chest, this allows the artist to show emotions and to heighten tension. From analysing the article I have noticed that there is no pull out quotes suggesting that nothing in the article would really draw a reader in.