Derry Girls is a sitcom on Channel 4. Set in Derry (Northern Ireland) in the 1990s, it follows a group of school friends at a Catholic girls’ school. To launch the final series, we needed to engage the existing fanbase plus female 16–34s, leveraging a Gen Z/Millennial trend for 90s nostalgia in the UK. The objective was to sustain our young viewer share at launch (vs the previous season), and increase attribution to Channel 4 (vs Netflix). We brought back Smash Hits! – an iconic pop culture magazine for UK teens in the 90s – for a one-off, bespoke special. 28 pages of specially shot, written and designed articles and pieces all featuring, or in the voice of, the characters from the show. Working with the 1990s editor of Smash Hits, we created a truly authentic version of the magazine, just very, very Derry.

We commissioned our photographer to capture all the issue’s content using a mixture of film, digital, polaroid and 90s digi / disposable cameras, giving each feature a distinct and authentic look that captured the period. The art direction was informed by archive issues that we hunted down on ebay and we worked closely with the 90s editor of Smash Hits to ensure every bit of type design, colour palette and ‘how-to’ layout stayed true to the time period. Visually our issue celebrated the iconic over-the-top hi-energy look of the 90s; with clashing colours, mismatched typefaces, big characterful letting and lots of exclamation marks!!! To mark the final series of the show where the main characters leave school age 16, we conceived a ‘schools out’ theme which provided the magazine’s cover and the centrefold pull-out poster, shot against a hot-pink backdrop and finished with two zingy fluorescent inks.