SleazeNation relaunches under new-to-magazines team

SleazeNation is to be relaunched as Sleaze and will controversially be headed up by a team with no previous magazine experience. Neil Boorman, publisher of London fanzine Shoreditch Twat, joins as editor; Richard Hart, former creative director at ad agency Mother, will head up design and art direction; and Cynthia Lawrence-John, previously a stylist to rap star Missy Elliott, joins as fashion director. Chris Hatherill, former editor of Vice, and Alex Rayner, former associate editor at The Face also join the editorial team as contributors.

The new team aims to approach the new Sleaze with a "blank canvas" outlook, allowing fresh ideas in design and content to break through the "lifestyle magazine" formula.

Sleaze describes itself as a "warts-and-all" overview of contemporary British youth culture.

A spokesperson for Swinstead said: "With consumer habits continually evolving, Sleaze knows that its readers no longer wanted to be dictated to. Consumerism now has little to aspire to and in anticipation of this, Sleaze realises the role of the magazine must change, offering more than tribal trends and styles."

In a similar move, Swinstead's cutting-edge music title Jockey Slut is investing in an expansion plan to make greater use of the expertise behind the magazine. Its website is to be redeveloped as a destination site with information being made available for free on a weekly and daily basis. The site will also begin to carry for paid-for content such as music downloads.

Jon Swinstead, Swinstead Publishing founder and managing director, said: "Information is so readily available now that some monthly titles struggle to be either relevant or considered. Daily, weekly, weekend supplements and online are far more suited to timely information."

Both magazines are out on February 19. The online version of Jockey Slut will be updated on a weekly and daily basis after that date.

Espionage, Swinstead's own youth marketing agency that launched in October, will spearhead the repositioning activity. Account handling is headed by Dave Chase, a former account manager on brands such as Xfm and Virgin at youth marketing agency Cake.

Swinstead recently parted company with Xfm, for which it produced music magazine X-Ray on a contract basis. Xfm is currently looking for an investor for the magazine.

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