Learning the forms and how they are used, displayed and distributed
Why do we have media studies ?
To understand how to make forms of media and how to use them effectively. To learn different styles of camerawork and cinematography and ways to use it effectively
Intentions and Ideas
for The Sunday Gamer – James Rouault
The task of producing a cover of a magazine for gamers suited me as I
used to game a lot and have a lot of friends that game. During our induction
day we had some time in the lesson to produce a draft on paper. I used this
draft to structure my design when I began to create it in Adobe Photoshop.
Below is my draft and finished product; as you can see there are some changes,
but they are very similar. However, it doesn’t look like a magazine cover.
So, I searched online for gaming magazine covers and this is what came up:
I noticed my cover didn’t look like any of the others; so, I started
again having done a bit of research on what the magazine covers should look
like.
A game I used to play a lot was Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, so I
found a portrait image to go as the image on my cover as I had noticed all the
others had one larger image that filled the cover.
Then I added the name for my magazine, The Sunday Gamer. I had seen a
lot of the covers put the text behind the head of a character if there was one.
So, I watched a YouTube tutorial on how to do this.
I then went back to my previous cover and looked at what I put around
the sides of the cover to see what I could reuse. So, I kept the free Envavo Heatbuff
for when you subscribe to the magazine and the article on what is the best
gaming phone. I put these in the red banner at the top of the cover. I then
found new images as I didn’t like the old ones and wanted to get rid of the
background, so it is just the product on the red banner as this is a clean and
professional look.
I then put in the bottom left corner another hint at an article in the
magazine that is about the new Oculus Quest which is a VR headset that has no
wires.
I then went on the Ubisoft website to find out the latest news on Tom
Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege and there is a new season coming in the next couple
of weeks, so I said I was making an article about what is expected of the new
series.
I thought of the name for the magazine as I work at M&S St John as
my Saturday job so I looked at the papers and saw a lot have daily in the title
however no teen would buy a magazine daily, so I thought go weekly, I then saw
that the daily papers offer a special Sunday edition. Therefore, I came up with
the name ‘The Sunday Gamer’. It could be sold as a separate magazine on Sundays
or it could be a supplement in one of the Sunday papers.
Once I had the name, I decided to make
a logo for it using Adobe Illustrator. I came up with the idea to put the name
of the magazine into a TV/monitor as to play any games you need a screen.
I chose the font Bebas Neue as it is blocky and chunky as gives a style
that is similar to what games often use.
This alternative cover challenges male stereotypes as it isn’t projecting messages thought as ‘masculine’ like being physically strong, adventurous and dangerous. Men aren’t expected to immensely care about how they look or fashion, or embrace their feminine side. In my cover i used James Charles, who is known on YouTube for expressing his femininity through makeup and extreme looks. Often on Boys Life magazines, the cover is of an image of nature, or displaying a large natural background, whereas on girls life they often have a close up shot of a young, attractive girl to show her outfit and makeup, which i have captured in this alternative cover.
For my Boy’s Life magazine I used a image of a chef to challenge the stereotypical magazines cover targeted at men as typical men magazines are shown are adventurous, dangerous and has this whole aspect of strength and danger but in mine I made it more tranquil and my cover is a chef because cooking is normally seen as a domestic woman job to do but I wanted to show you can do want you want to do and it doesn’t limited to a man or a woman.
For my colour scheme I put a blue as it is quite calm and relaxing also it works with my image of the chef as he has a dark strip of blue on his jacket and the name on the jacket is of this colour as well. I wanted a not so bold choice of colour as I didn’t want it to be “attacking” to our eyes but it is still noticeable also the chef himself has a nice, calm but warm smile.