I have chosen to style my magazine cover similar to this Fortnite Magazine, as i liked the gallery display at the bottom of 3 different games, and will add this to my own design. I’m also going to include article plugs at the side with a red puff, as it it an effective way to reference multiple articles that will be in the magazine to interest the reader.

Not finished.

Media Studies NEA – gaming front cover 

I intend to name the gaming magazine ‘’Azeroth Times’’ as I am trying to make the magazine based off the MMORPG game called ‘’World of Warcraft’’. For the masthead I intend to use a font commonly used within the game and I will include a shield similar to the one used within the ”World of Warcraft game front cover.This shield will be placed behind the ‘’Azeroth times’’ title to make the masthead more appealing and eye catching. In the gaming magazine front cover I plan to target the role playing games community as it is a broad audience which would perfectly suit a gaming magazine.To target the role playing games community, I have decided to create a character within the program ‘’Fuse’’ that will resemble an Orc from the game that I am basing my front cover on, and I will use the character as my main image in the front cover.The character will be positioned in a running pose in order to look more ferocious and grab the consumers attention.Behind the character I will add 3D effects which such as a drop shadow and a crack within the background in order to add more noise within the background of the gaming magazine cover as I believe it would be much more bland otherwise. To add onto the theme of World of Warcraft, I’m going to use a background which resembles an old piece of parchment as it will relate to the role playing games community more due to many of their games being based off fantasy worlds with swords,dragons and other mythical creatures.Along the sides of the main image I am going to add cover lines that will give insight info about what information the magazine includes. In order to appeal to my target audience more these cover lines will mention information that a role playing games community member would find interesting. For example I will mention in game competitions,guides and prizes to be won or redeemed within the game. I also plan to add a puff which will say ‘’chance to win a World of Warcraft token’’ as this will further interest my target audience and persuade them to purchase my product. The text within the puff will appeal to the target audience as it informs them that they can win 1 months worth of game subscription for the game ‘’World of Warcraft’’.

For my magazine I decided that i wanted to base it on the idea of encouraging more girls to get into gaming, this inspired me to think of the title ‘GAMER GIRL’, because it clearly conveys the message I intend to get across. I then thought of a catchy slogan for my magazine which is ‘Run head first into the gaming world’, which I put in a serif font with a flag effect to make it more appealing to look at. The dominant signifier of my magazine cover is a female games character, which focuses on my main intention for my magazine, this shows a strong independent woman who fights for what she believes in, this is the main message I want to get across with this magazine cover, and show girls who are around my age (mid – late teens) that it’s okay to do something your friends aren’t doing and it’s okay to try something new that’s stereotypically ‘for boys’ because girls are allowed to have fun too (this is also an iconic sign because it looks just like a female in action). I have used a san serif font (Franklin Gothic Medium and Heavy) to create a clear and crisp look to my magazine. I have used different symbolic signs (the colours red, black). Indexical signs include: buildings (symbolise a village where the main game is set). I also wanted my magazine to be interactive and appealing so I have used rhetorical questions such as ‘DO YOU WANT A NEW HOBBY’. I also had the intention of making my magazine look as realistic as possible, so I did some research into different magazines and got my inspiration from the ‘PC GAMER’ magazines. For my masthead I decided to make it bright and bold to catch my intended audience’s eye, to do this I chose the bold colour red to make it pop from the rest of the magazine cover. I also wanted to have a sense of depth to my magazine, this is shown with the mountains in the background with a village in front of them. I have also featured some things that are inside the magazine on the cover such as ‘the interview on page 3’. I have also stated the GAMING FOR U company that would sponsor the magazine.

Barthes- A french philosopher who explored semiotics and social theory

Pierce- An American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist who is sometimes known as “the father of pragmatism”.

Saussure – A Swiss linguist and semiotician. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiology in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the founders of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major founders of semiotics/semiology.

Semiotics – The study of sign process

Sign- A gesture or action used to convey information or an instruction.

Signifier – A signs physical form (such as a sound, printed word, or image) as distinct from its meaning ( Saussure)

Signified- the meaning or idea expressed by a sign, as distinct from the physical form in which it is expressed.

Icon- person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration.

Index- a sign or measure of something

Symbol- A symbol is a mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship.

Code – A system of words, letters, figures, or symbols used to represent others

Dominant Signifier – Dominant meaning of sign

Anchorage – Directs the viewer to chosen meaning

Ideology – A system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

Paradigm – A typical example or pattern of something

Syntagm – the relationship is one where signs occur in sequence or parallel and operate together to create meaning 

Signifcation – the representation or conveying of meaning.

Denotation – he literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests. (Bathes)

Connotation – an idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.” (Bathes)

Myth- Belief that isn’t true