Mission:

The mission of my magazine, Midwest Shredder Chicks, is to reach out to a specific audience

that often goes ignored in other snowboard magazines. Generally, the big world-wide snowboard

magazines cover men because they make up the majority of snowboarders. In addition to that,

snowboard magazines focus on mountain snowboarding and mountain resorts. Snowboarders in

the Midwestern states tend to get very little coverage because there are no mountains, and

women in the Midwest receive even less coverage. My mission is to create and hold interest of

Midwest women snowboarders and promote more Midwest women to become snowboard

enthusiasts and snowboarders. Through in-depth coverage of women snowboarders in the

Midwest, I want my target audience to feel empowered by snowboarding and be proud of their

sport.

Personality:

My magazine will have an upbeat and fun tone to get Midwest women snowboarders and

enthusiasts excited about the sport. I want to make sure, however, that the magazine doesn’t

appear too girly. Since snowboarding is more of an extreme sport, I want to get across the point

that women’s snowboarding is constantly progressing, and women shouldn’t think of themselves

as “not as good as the guys.” The magazine will still have elements that show it is definitely a

snowboard magazine for women, but it won’t be overwhelmingly loaded with pink, glitter, and

flowers because that’s just not how snowboarding is. Snowboarding is more of an adrenaline

sport than a glamorous sport.

Audience:

With my magazine, I will reach women who snowboard and who are interested in snowboarding

in the Midwest. I think this will help get more women interested and involved in snowboarding.

It will highlight that there is a great snowboard scene for women in the Midwest, which many

people don’t realize through national snowboard magazines.

Formula:

My magazine will focus on the women’s snowboard industry, which will cover information

about up-and-coming Midwest women snowboarders, professional women snowboarders from

the Midwest, competitions in the area for women, Midwest snowboard resorts, Midwest-based

snowboard companies for women, special snowboard events Midwest women polls and more.

Important Design Decisions:

I will use bold fonts and color to gain the attention of my target audience. However, it will still

be simplistic in design so that it doesn’t appear cluttered or overwhelming. The color will be

applied effectively and sparingly so the main ideas will pop out at the reader.

The rationale of the nameplate:

I decided to give the nameplate a nice teal color that made it stand out from the black

background. I think this color flows/blends with the photo well because I sampled the teal color

from Corinne’s shirt in the picture, which creates a unified image. I also chose to make the word

“Midwest” in all capital letters, which was accompanied by a little map of all the Midwest states

my magazine would reach out to. Most other snowboard magazines strictly focus on Western

states with mountains, so I thought it would be unique to show the readers that this magazine is

especially for them. The word “Midwest” and the Midwest states graphic are practically

opposites on the color spectrum, which creates a good color compliment. I put the words

“Shredder Chicks” in the same font, but I used a bold italic for the word “Chicks”. I wanted to

make it very clear that this magazine is directed toward women, so I thought the italic helped

show that. I also decided to put a light-teal line underneath the nameplate so it didn’t look like

the title was simply floating in black space. I think the horizontal line helps attract the eye

because there is a diagonal line that converges with it.

The rationale of the cover art:

I chose to use this picture on the cover for a few reasons. First of all, it is a Midwest woman

snowboarder which directly relates to the target audience. Second of all, I thought the photo was

visually appealing because of its use of shadow and contrast. I had to make the background black

because it was mostly shadow, but I thought this design/photo would be great because it’s not a

dead center photo and it successfully uses curved lines and diagonal lines in a way which draws

the eye’s attention.

The rationale of the cover lines:

The main featured article in this magazine issue is an interview with Corinne Pasela, who is the

snowboarder shown on the front cover. I wanted to make sure this was the cover line that caught

the reader’s attention first, so I used a pink box and a magenta bold font which would contrast

with the black background. For the next cover line, I simply used a light-blue italic font on the

black background. This cover line is a noticeably smaller size than the Corinne story cover line.

The last cover line uses an even smaller font, and a yellowish-gold color to differentiate it from

the other two cover lines.

The rationale of the overall design:

Overall, I think this magazine cover definitely has newsstand aura. It uses color contrast

effectively, and targets a specific audience, Midwest women snowboarders. The use of pink in

the cover line suggests it’s directed toward women, but the other colors suggest the adrenaline-

rush/ extreme sport tone and personality. The stories and information in the magazine all directly

relate to Midwest women snowboarders and enthusiasts, so they don’t feel left out of the

snowboard scene (which is common in other major international snowboard magazines). I think

this magazine cover does a great job of displaying the mission I want to accomplish. I think this

targeted niche magazine will allow Midwest women snowboarders to get more involved in the

Midwest snowboard scene and make it clear that they can be just as good as the guys.