I have designed my double page spread to be a tutorial on how to use Adobe Fuse because I feel the more creative side will interest my target audience. I also chose a tutorial because I want to differentiate from other magazines and challenge the dominant conventions of a standard gaming magazine. I also feel a more creative element will attract my target audience as teenagers are usually interested in the craftier side of things where they can escape from the daily grind rather than being  bombarded with information that could make them lose interest due to the stress of exams and school. I have ensured to follow the style model I have used on both my contents page and front page in order to create consistency and deliver a clear layout which will engage my target audience.   

I have split my opening paragraph into two columns, in order to create a clear and professional layout, as well as follow the codes and conventions of a double page spread, in order to make mine appear a similar quality to the ones produced by professionals. I have also included a drop cap and page numbers, as they are following the standard style model of a standard double page spread that you would see in a professional magazine out there on the market. I have also used a white background because I wanted my double page spread to be gentle on the eyes, especially as I already have lots of colours on both the pages.

I have used very simplistic language, mainly because my target audience are young teenage girls, as I feel a majority of my target audience won’t know advanced language that adults use. I have also laid it out and colour coded the different sections with the steps and the image in alternate colours to the next step and image in order to make it clear to my target audience. Finally, I have used multiple images as it will appeal to my target audience, especially because from personal experiences, I know at the age of my target audience, they would pick up a magazine and buy it because of all the pictures and the lack of words, as loads of words would bore them and counteract my aim, which is to satisfy their needs of escapism from school and serve as a source of entertainment. 

According to the Internet, children are 27% of the entire population and fall in the DE Social group. My magazine will serve as a source of escapism and will be cheap, so anyone of any social class can afford it. Before planning my front cover, I created multiple magazine covers of different styles, to see which one was the most effective at persuading the consumers to buy it and was suitable for my target audience. I concluded that having 3 little plugs with photos summarizing pages in my magazine was most effective and suitable for my target audience.  

Before planning my magazine cover, I looked at covers of famous gaming magazines and noticed that game characters are predominantly male. The main aim of my magazine is to promote more females into the gaming industry. Elements of my magazine will help to promote female gamers, such as interviews with female gamers. 

I have also included plugs, such as an interview with professional gamers as gaming is very popular with teenagers, so I feel the interview will be relevant to my target audience. The photo of Marian will be an iconic sign and the “Marian Racers” logo will be an iconic sign, so that the consumer automatically knows that a main article within my magazine is the launch of “Marian Racers”. Finally, I have thought very carefully about the sizing of my magazine, and I have decided on an A4 size of magazine because it will be able to fit into the consumer’s bag.  

I have created Marian to appear radical to create the interpretation that women can be like men, in the fact that they can take on the adventure and action as well. I’ve also designed Marian to have masculine features to remove her sexuality and make her like male characters, as usually female game characters have large breasts, and their body is in an hourglass shape. This is also shown by the posing of Marian, usually females are posing sideways, so that their feminine features are defined, however, I have put Marian in a masculine pose, to challenge the dominant ideology and emphasise how women should be equal to men. Marian is also wearing clothes strategically covering her bottom, challenging the dominant ideology of females and the representation of women on games covers. I’ve also included no makeup on Marian to challenge the dominant ideology and emphasise how women and men should be represented truthfully, as not all females are the same as what is represented by the dominant ideology.    

The cultivation theory says that by creating more media challenging the dominant ideology, you will be able to change people’s theories. On my magazine cover, I am cultivating the idea of equality for both males and females. This is shown by the common occurrence of females doing more male orientated activities, such as Marian (a female) is a female rally car driver, challenging the dominant ideology that only men can participate in car racing. 

I have decided to follow a purple colour scheme as I feel this colour is a stereotypical female colour, thus emphasizing who my target audience is. The colour purple is also a symbol for power, which creates a radical message from my magazine as my aim is to get more females into gaming, an industry predominantly occupied by males. The colour purple is also radical as I am trying to deliver a message that within the gaming industry, both genders are equal. Throughout my magazine, I have followed a suitable style model by using the same fonts that have appeared on my front cover, so that is appears consistent and professional-looking. In the top right-hand corner of my Contents Page, I have included social media links to the magazine’s social media pages, as a majority of my target audience will have social media accounts because it was reported that 9 out of 110 teenagers have a social media account. 

My featured articles are in a large pink box because it sticks with the stereotypical female colours and I want it to stand out, so I feel the bright pink background will attract my target audience’s attention. On the right-hand side of my Contents Page, I have a box that has a majority of all the other articles appearing in my magazine issue. I haven’t included all of them as it might stultify my target audience, so instead I have decided to include the articles that might appeal to my teenager target audience, such as competitions, interviews and tutorials. For my featured articles, I have included many game characters of a different ethnicity to include that minority, presenting my magazine as radical because not a lot of game characters are of a different ethnicity. I also have the featured games characters designed to appear quite masculine and in masculine poses to appear radical and reinforce the idea that both males and females are equal. 

The fonts I have used are the same as the fonts that have appeared on the front cover and double page spread, as I want to keep my style models consistent and clear. I do not want to bombard my target audience with loads of text as I am aiming my magazine as teenage girls, therefore a lot of text will make them lose interest, therefore I have kept to the minimal text possible, but ensured that I have still covered the minimal requirements that have been set. 

I have now decided rather than doing an interview with a professional games designer, I will instead do a how to tutorial with Adobe Fuse.

I liked the layout of this DPS as it is clear and I also liked the tilted title and images in a bordered box as I feel it it will appeal to my young teenage target audience. I will use the same house style (fonts and colouring) than I have used in my contents page and front colour.

Once I began designing my contents page, I realised it doesn’t follow the codes and conventions of a magazine cover. Therefore, I have looked at more exemplar contents pages and have decided to redesign my contents page and follow this style model as I liked the layout and the use of space.

Even though it’s double page, I am going to remove the welcome message. Instead I am going to have boxes with previews into games featured in my magazine and I am going to have a “plus box” with extra articles.

I have decided to redesign my magazine contents page as I feel this layout will appeal to my target audience rather than my original style model, which didn’t suit my teen target audience

Theme: Adobe Fuse

What is it about?

• My DPS is going to be about how a majority of the popular games featured in my magazine are designed in Adobe Fuse.
• I will have an Adobe Fuse created character, one male and one female, in order to be inclusive and I will have the Fuse girl character have dark skin to be inclusive and give a good representation of my magazine as usually people only feature people who are lighter skinned.
• My magazine DPS will be radical as I will have a darker skinned woman posing in quite a masculine way in order to show that women and men are equal. My Fuse Character will not be doing something related with females, ie cooking as I want to challenge the dominant ideology and the expectation of females.
• I will follow the house style of my contents page and front page. What I mean by this is that I will use the same font and colouring as I did for the title of both my contents page and my magazine front cover and I will also have the title for my DPS the same font size as for the title I had used for my contents page.

Style Models

• I am going to design my DPS to look slightly like this “Gears of War 2” DPS. However, I do not like the tilted text, therefore, I am going to have the text straight.
• However, I am going to have the title of the DPS in the top left hand corner in order to follow the house style of my magazine.
• The coloring of the page will be fairly feminine colours (possibly a pale purple/pink) in order to appeal to my female target audience.
• I will put my text into columns in order to make it easier for the audience to read and to give it a clear appearance.
• I want to keep the title of my DPS quite simple so that it is easy to remember and effective to attract my audiences.

I am going to base my magazine contents on this contents page by the Official PlayStation Magazine and this contents page from GamesTM.

• I am going to have subheadings for each section (ie interviews and genres of games) for the audience to easily locate a page.
• Like GamesTM, I am going to have a line beside the “Contents” title with the website and the issue number so that the reader can know what issue number this is and that there is a website they can access for exclusive content. I am strategically placing the website at the top to entice the reader to visit the website as according to research, people notice the top of a page more then the bottom. Therefore I am going to put the important articles within this issue towards the top so that people take more notice of it.
• This house style (title and then line with the website and issue number) will be a house style I will also use on my DPS to create consistency.
• I am going to use the same/similar colours I have used on my front cover to keep with the house style of my magazine and the colour scheme I am using to create consistency.
• At the bottom of the page, I am going to have in small font the page number and the name of my magazine (Level Up) because to the audience it is not important, hence why O will have it small, however it is a necessity of a contents page/any page of a magazine so the audience know what page they are on.

According to the Internet, children are 27% of the entire population and fall in the DE Social Group. My magazine will serve as a source of escapism and will be relatively cheap, so that people of any social class will be able to afford it. Before I began planning my front cover, I created multiple magazine covers of different styles, to see which one was the most effective at persuading the consumers to buy and was suitable for my target audience. I concluded that having 3 little plugs with photos summarizing the pages in my magazine was the most effective and suitable for my target audience. 

Before planning my magazine cover, I looked at covers of famous gaming magazines and noticed that game characters are predominantly male. The main aim of my magazine is to promote more females into the gaming industry. Elements of my magazine will help to promote female gamers, such as interviews and reviews that are with female gamers. To entice females to buy my magazines, I will use the colours associated with females 

I have also included plugs, such as an interview with a professional gamer as online gaming is very popular with the Youths, so I feel the interview will be relevant to my target audience. The photo of Marian will be an iconic sign within my magazine cover and the “Marian Racers” logo will be an iconic sign, so that the consumer automatically knows that the main article of my magazine is the launch of “Marian Racers”. Finally, I have thought very carefully about the sizing of my magazine, and I have decided on an A4 size of magazine because it will be able to fit into the consumer’s bag. 

I have aimed to represent Marian as radical to create the interpretation that women can be like men, in the fact that they can take on the adventure and action too, rather than stereotyping woman and expecting them to go out and work. I have also designed Marian to have masculine features to remove her sexuality and make her like male characters, as usually female game characters have large breasts, and their body is in an hourglass shape. This is also shown by the posing of Marian, usually females are posing sideways, so that their feminine features are defined, however, I have put Marian in a pose that is not defining her feminine features, thus challenging the dominant ideology and emphasises how women should be equal to men in the sense of their activities. Marian is also wearing clothes that are strategically covering her bottom, challenging the dominant ideology of females and the representation of women on games covers: wearing short clothes that shows a lot of skin to emphasize feminine features. I have also included no makeup on Marian, to also challenge the dominant ideology and emphasise how women and men should be represented truthfully, as not all females are the same as what is represented by the dominant ideology.   

The cultivation theory says that by creating more media challenging the dominant ideology, you will be able to change people’s theories. On my magazine cover, I am cultivating the idea of equality for both males and females. This is shown by the common occurrence of females doing more male orientated activities, such as Marian (a female) is a female rally car driver, challenging the dominant ideology that only men can participate in car racing. 

Who is Common?

• His real name is Lonnie Corant Jaman Shuka Rashid Lynn, however, he is better known by his stage name, Common.
• Common is an American rapper, actor, writer, activist and philanthropist.
• He was born in South Side, Chicago (Illinois) on 13th March 1972
• Illinois is a place which is known for being a poverty area.
• He has completed his Doctorate Degree.
• His music is influenced by culture as he wants to spread awareness of racism.
• Common has a net worth of approximately $45 million
• He has acted/voiced in many famous films, some are:
  • Happy Feet Two
  • Suicide Squad
  • Now You See Me
  • Smallfoot
  • The Hate U Give

Letter to the Free (Music Video)

• It is from an album called “Black America Again” which is the 11th studio album that was produced by Common
• It is a song that is under the Hip Hop and Rap Genre
• It was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Song – Contemporary
• Letter to the Free was awarded a Grammy Award and an Emmy Award
• He was nominated for the best Rap album at the Grammy Awards
• It was a low budget music video
• The video is all filmed in black and white bringing a message that having a colour is less important as everyone is equal
• It is a predictable hip hop and rap music video.
• The music video is hosted by VEVO.
• There is no main story to compliment this music video.
• The black box that features in the music video is a symbol that black things can represent infinity and something that the audiences need to know about.
• It appears to be quite a radical music video because it challenges the dominant ideology
• As suggested by the title “Letter to the Free” the free are the white people and Common is trying to show that everyone should be treated equally, no matter the colour of their skin.
• The prison setting represents how the black people are “locked away” as if they are criminals, however in reality they are the same as white people.
• “Letter to the Free” is part of the soundtrack to a film called “13th”