The Anorak ideal

Jeremy Leslie has cast his eye over the latest issue of Anorak, the children’s magazine that “could easily have been just an adult ideal of what a kids mag should be.”

It’s clear from the rest of his post that he feels Anorak engages with children as well as their parents, but the ‘adult ideal’ is interesting.

We’re used to magazines trying to sell us watches, shirts and hi-fi equipment by convincing us that we’re a certain type of person living a certain type of life, and Anorak has tweaked that. With its emphasis on happiness, its engaging writing and its beautiful design, I always find myself thinking that if and when I have kids, this is the magazine I want to read with them. And in the meantime, I look forward to picking up the next copy because it’s such a lovely, charming magazine that I enjoy reading it on my own.

I’ve never really believed that I should go out and buy (or even want to go out and buy) James Bond’s watch, but I totally believe the story Anorak tells me about myself.

The big publishers would kill for that sort of association between lifestyle and magazine title, and I hope that as Anorak continues to grow it can find ways to make money out of the niche it has created.