This information about the self-negotiated project is quite brief, more is explained in the actual Proposal document - available if necessary.
This page is to show the research, development and ideas for this project.
The brief for this project is to create a 16 page magazine, journal or publication relating to the theory as practice essay questions, I am looking at sequel/prequel for this project - looking at how the representation of women in gaming started in the past, the development of it and how it looks today. This work relates to my essay topic, I thought that linking the two ideas together would generate a good final outcome. I genuinely feel passionate about this project, as a female gamer myself, looking into the research and development of women in gaming really interests me and I feel that it is a serious topic that needs addressing.
I began my research on Pinterest page as I find it easy to use and it usually inspires me to develop some ideas. I collected images of Tomb Raider, GTA, Typography and existing magazine layouts, relating all these things as key ideas that would appear throughout the magazine. Before I started any design work I wanted to create a name for the magazine, I looked at creating a gamertag, something that appears next to a players name when online for example just so that it would be easily recognised and catch the audiences eye - although this idea was good, producing the typography for it proved difficult and I didn't like the outcomes that I had produced. I then looked at using the word 'women' or 'woman' but this looked far to similar to the Women's Institutes logo... not exactly what I wanted. I started playing around with words, looking at other magazine covers on a google search for ideas and inspiration - 'Discovery' or 'Discover' - make this more relatable to women?? Add the female gender logo into the letter 'O' and some colour to make it more female - without being too much of a stereotype, but I am trying to target an audience...
I made sure to research existing games magazine and mainly focussed on Playstation magazine, I really like the layout and styles that the magazine uses, it's modern and provides all the right information for gamers. I looked at the colour scheme, typography, layout, characters and in some cases eye-catching backgrounds - using full page images from games. Taking inspiration from this magazine I have explored the idea of using shapes, colour, type and layout to piece my magazine together, I want to create a theme that will run throughout the magazine and make sure that all the pages relate to one another, making it easier for audiences to recognise what magazine it is.
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| Original Tomb Raider Font |
One of the main focuses of this magazine is typography, I really enjoy working with type and feel that it is important to any magazine, I want it to stand out from others, be bold and easy to read. I chose to use Lemon Milk as my main font that will be used on the front cover for the masthead, tagline and used to headline the articles on each page - I will also research other typography that relates to the articles themselves e.g. Tomb Raider page could feature the same font as the game - I need to make sure that I redraw the font and make it my own by adding my own textures (this is due to copyright reasoning - I don't want to use others' work on my own). Looking at the original Tomb Raider font I wanted to create a similar style so that it still looked recognisable, I had redrawn and added a new texture to my new font and practiced how it appears as an overlay and also written in other words - I could use the same font for the Rhianna Pratchett page, she is the writer of Tomb Raider so the font is still relatable.
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| Practice with overlaying type |
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| Redrawn Font |
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| Redrawn Font |
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| Created collage |
After gathering some research and deciding on themes for the magazine I thought to write the articles first before designing the actual pages, trying to speed up the process a little - so that I can focus more on the designing of each page instead of the articles at the same time. I waited to complete the contents page and editors notes till the end just incase I needed to make any changes to the magazine.
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| Collection of Game Plots and characters |
Starting with the designs for the front cover and the rest of the double page spreads. I created this collage of female game characters, ranging from old to new that will be used on the front cover or as part of a background - all these female characters were researched and I collected the information together to show the game plots and what happens to the female characters, they are usually 'damsels in distress.' I continued to design my own drawings and styles that would be used on each page - after creating all the parts for the page, they were pieced together and then the layout was then put together. I used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create the drawings of Lara Croft, Rhianna Pratchett, a damsel in distress and the collection of GTA girls.
Starting to place these designs into the InDesign document, I wanted to create a unique shape to make the magazine stand out from others, so I made the magazine 210mm x 210mm. I started piecing together the front cover for the magazine, I definitely wanted to use an image of Lara Croft - representing a strong, female character that features in an action packed adventure game. I collected images from my Pinterest research to use for the background on the cover, playing around with the title, colours and layout of type. I chose to stick with the final image of the front cover, it fits well and I liked the outcome of this one the best. I made sure that I was using an appropriate grid and guide throughout the production of this magazine, using both rows and columns to get the correct proportions for everything on the page. The use of text on both the cover and double page spreads is really important, I research about how InDesign uses the type tool without any major settings, to correct this and make the text look professional and clean I adjusted the justification under the paragraph settings - this made the text fit properly in the boxes and fit to the page better. Continuing to add the rest of the cover lines to the page, barcodes, price, date and issue number I will return to this at the end of the project and double check that all the conventions of the magazine are there and they are all in line and look clean.
This page is to show the research, development and ideas for this project.
I began my research on Pinterest page as I find it easy to use and it usually inspires me to develop some ideas. I collected images of Tomb Raider, GTA, Typography and existing magazine layouts, relating all these things as key ideas that would appear throughout the magazine. Before I started any design work I wanted to create a name for the magazine, I looked at creating a gamertag, something that appears next to a players name when online for example just so that it would be easily recognised and catch the audiences eye - although this idea was good, producing the typography for it proved difficult and I didn't like the outcomes that I had produced. I then looked at using the word 'women' or 'woman' but this looked far to similar to the Women's Institutes logo... not exactly what I wanted. I started playing around with words, looking at other magazine covers on a google search for ideas and inspiration - 'Discovery' or 'Discover' - make this more relatable to women?? Add the female gender logo into the letter 'O' and some colour to make it more female - without being too much of a stereotype, but I am trying to target an audience...
Starting with the designs for the front cover and the rest of the double page spreads. I created this collage of female game characters, ranging from old to new that will be used on the front cover or as part of a background - all these female characters were researched and I collected the information together to show the game plots and what happens to the female characters, they are usually 'damsels in distress.' I continued to design my own drawings and styles that would be used on each page - after creating all the parts for the page, they were pieced together and then the layout was then put together. I used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create the drawings of Lara Croft, Rhianna Pratchett, a damsel in distress and the collection of GTA girls.
