'Girls Mags' — Studio Brief 02 — OUGD505

Glossy magazines that are typically labelled as 'girly' are largely considered to be a thing of the past. However magazines such as ELLE still have demographics that are solely marketed towards women.

The bright 'hot pink' that is renowned for being slapped all over the walls of a young girls bedroom is plastered all over the covers of ELLE.

This shade of pink is a difficult colour to work with for all gender neutrality is concerned. People that are not as well informed may simply make the link that they have always made with the colour and assume that the zine is supposedly marketed towards 'females' only.

A quick google search of 'Girlie mags' and it is clear that the results come back with other words like vintage and old come in to play, which is indeed true in many ways. Even the advertisements in said magazines have become much more gender fluid than they were in the 60's/70's which will be explored in more depth in a later post as this also has a lot to do with the mainstreaming of feminism and gender equality.

When you compare the typical 'lads mags' to 'girls mags', why is it that the vast majority of magazines marketed towards solely males feature a woman on the front, the same goes for typically 'girlie' magazines, like the example used above, a google image search for ELLE will return covers that feature nothing but women.

Avoiding the use of any stereotypically and specific gender orientated magazine design is a must within the XY zine. Keeping it simple and not featuring anything that will point to either gender will be a vital part of the design process.