Task 4 and 5- XXL Magazine

XXL Magazine

I have decided to produce a hip hop magazine, I have therefore decided that XXL Magazine would be a suitable magazine to research as it operates as a music magazine in the Hip Hop genre similar to the way I want my magazine to be.

The Publisher: Harris Publications

Harris Publications is the publisher of XXL Magazine, it is quite a large publishing company with magazines in various different areas including music, comics, celebrity and lifestyle and sports and health. Harris Publications would be a good publisher for my magazine as they have produced music magazines before and have obviously produced a very successful music magazine in XXL. However they would probably be unwilling to publish another Hip Hop magazine such as mine as it may well take readers away from its existing Hip Hop magazine XXL.

About XXL Magazine

XXL Magazine is a music magazine in the hip hop genre. The magazine was founded in 1997 and is part of Harris Publications.It is a monthly magazine which looks at everything going on in the world of Hip Hop

Example front covers

Front Covers of XXL often tend to feature a large image of a famous hip hop artist who has a large feature in the magazine. This is something which I could use in my mgazine by similarly using a large main image on my front cover.

Example Contents Pages

Similarly to the front cover the contents page of XXL uses a large main image of an artist or someone else who has a main feature in the magazine. The magazine also uses typical magazine conventions with the magazine date, as well as a list of the features of the magazine. I think there is a lot that I could take from this contents page to use in my magazine as this contents page is very clear with a good layout.

Example articles

The magazine has various different features included such as interviews, album reviews, Hip Hop news and upcoming album reviews. I may well use similar features in my magazine as these features are obviously popular with the readers of a successful Hip Hop magazine like XXL.

Ideas for my magazine

Article IdeasI have took many ideas from the XXL articles that I have looked at such as interviews and latest Hip Hop news, the magazine also has many other features such as album reviews as well as new and upcoming releases.

Possible names for my magazineUnlike XXL Magazine I have decided for my magazine to have a title with connotations of the Hip Hop genre, this is because it would therefore make it very easy to link the magazine to the genre. I have thought about names such as Mic (as in microphone), The Mix and also Beat or Beat Box.