Cover Page Flat Plan

Content Planning

The name that I decided on for the magazine is ‘Dexterity XX‘. This was chosen as both are explicit references to the Dungeons and Dragons game. Dexterity is how you measure a character’s skill in performing tasks, whilst ‘XX’ means 20 in roman numerals (with the D20 being the most famous and important dice in the game). When put together, it suggests a very high competence in completing tasks – which would hopefully put across a positive message to the readers about the nature of the magazine.

Writing Sample

“Gone are the days of sweaty nerds crouching in a basement throwing D20s onto a table lit by a swinging light bulb. These fans have seen the light of the outside world and walked towards it…into a slightly larger basement with better Wi-Fi signal and air conditioning.”

Pictures

Design and Layout Planning

Colour Scheme

I proposed using these colour schemes as part of my planning. I needed a colour scheme that both looks aesthetically pleasing whilst connoting the key themes of the magazine

I eventually decided that the magazine would use a mix of red (connotation of action/danger), teal and orange (conventional colour combination that works well aesthetically and connotes excitement). This is what that final colour scheme looks like:

Now that I have decided on this colour scheme, all of the pictures I take and all of the planning I do will relate in someway to this design.

Fonts

This was a long-list of potential fonts that I could use for both the cover and the contents of my Magazine. This long list really allowed me to play with a variety of ideas before making a final decision on which fonts I would be using.

The short-list comprises of these fonts:

Berlin Sans FB

Segoe UI Semibold

Eras Light ITC

Lucida Fax

Kozuka Gothic Pro B

I chose these fonts as I felt that they each contained an element of the traditional and the modern – which is the exact feeling my magazine is going for. This is achieved through some of the fonts having a very modern, sleek aesthetic such as ‘Eras Light ITC’, and others maintaining the eccentricities of traditional writing – such as the curves of ‘Berlin Sans FB’ and the serif nature of ‘Lucida Fax’. The mix of thicknesses within the fonts also allows me to use some of them to specifically isolate a phrase or section of my magazine.

Audience Research

In conducting my audience research I distributed my survey through 3 primary methods:

1. Manual Distribution to friends within Sixth Form (and further spreading to their friends who also play Dungeons and Dragons)
2. Sharing in the Sub-Reddit /r/DnD
3. Sharing in the Facebook group ‘Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition’

Because of this, I was able to collect a high number of responses which showed a huge contrast within their answers. This was also effective as it asked the target market directly about their opinions and thoughts.

Contrary to what would usually be expected in a piece of AS Media Coursework, my responses were not dominated by my personal age demographic (only 70 responses were from this age group). The survey was aimed at a general audience who would be dedicated enough to join a sub-Reddit or Facebook group relating to the game. This audience would most definitely be the same as the one that would be interested in reading my magazine. It is also promising that the demographic for my magazine resides within their 20s (or early 30s/late teens). This demographic would be the ones who could be accepting of radical change/alterations to the general format of a Dungeons and Dragons Magazine – as the rest of my research shows.

As the magazine was aimed and distributed within the Dungeons and Dragons community, this result was expected. Neyman’s law of probability also tells us that a probability of at least 95% is enough to cast away other results as outcasts or irregularities. It could be wondered why I would not aim the survey at everybody rather than just within the community – but this was due to my magazine being aimed at the younger part of the inclusive community rather than people who have never played the game before.

As this graph shows, the majority of the community play the game on a fairly regular basis. Because of this, many of them would be highly interested in content relating to how they play the game and how they can make their quests more exciting. This regular presence in their lives would also mean that cultural examinations of the game would be of interest to the players – the game is enough of a constant in their life that subversion and analysis of how it operates could be interesting. If the magazine was to come out monthly, this would be useful for the weekly players as they could try out the new ideas and concepts over a number of games.

Whilst the modal response for this question was 7/10, the average response was 7.52/10 due to the high number of 8/10s and 10/10s. This figure would be impressively high for a wide-spreading genre; but this was to be expected due to the tight, inclusive nature of the Dungeons and Dragons community. However, it is still promising to see that there would be high interest in the magazine if it were to be published.

Listing the features in order of popularity, we have:

1. Campaign Ideas
2. Game-play Advice
3. News
4. Comics
5. Community Art
6. Featured Characters from the community
7. Message from the creators
8. Previews
9. Features on the community

The clear winner in terms of features is ‘Campaign Ideas’, which is a clear sign that many of the readers will fit into the ‘Explorers’ psycho-graphic. However, it could lead to a stronger unification of the standard story types within the Dungeons and Dragons game; which itself could be said to appeal to a mainstream psycho-graphic. The ‘Aspirers’ psycho-graphic is satisfied from the community art section, whilst the game-play advice has widespread appeal due to the complex nature of the game. The least popular feature of the selection was ‘Features on the community’, which seems to go against the initial premise for my magazine. However, it is understandable that this feature would not have immediate appeal for the audience as it is an unconventional for a typical Dungeons and Dragons magazine. I have been able to reinforce my initial concept through the final question.

This graph is a clear indication of the demographic split within the community. The younger audiences would be the ones that would want the magazine to use the aesthetics of a modern gaming magazine, whilst the older audiences would want the magazine to be reminiscent of the magazines they used to read on the game such as Dragon magazine. However, the magazine is supposed to appeal to these new fans of the game who do not carry the baggage of the last 30 years of the game.

I find this question to be the most interesting out of the survey – especially as I plan on my double-page spread to be a piece on how Dungeons and Dragons is viewed in the popular culture. I am particularly interested in the fact that 163 people said that they may be interested in it. This could allow for the piece to be genuinely enlightening and interesting for the readers – especially those who have never considered how Dungeons and Dragons is viewed by the popular culture. However, it is inevitable that 57 participants would not be interested in the prospect of a greater cultural retrospective, as many people are simply not interested in this side of the community and would not want to consider it.

 

Competitor Analysis

Whist there are no magazines circulating at the current moment that solely focus on the game ‘Dungeons and Dragons’, there are many popular magazines that are within the sub-genres of ‘Nerd Interest’ and ‘Gaming’.  My magazine will be able to stand out from its competitors as this fusion of the genres will appeal to consumers – especially those with a high interest in the game.

‘Doctor Who Magazine‘ stands out as a notable example of a popular title within the ‘nerd interest’ genre – where it is able to use its broad subject matter to explore many aspects of the fan culture. As a result of this, each issue contains features such as the comics, ‘Ask Steven’ (interview with the show runner), features on the production of the show, and fan contributions. This differs to what would usually be seen in something like a gaming magazine – where there is so much new content to cover that they cannot dedicate features to obscurities. This is also linked to the fact that gaming magazines will be aimed at an audience who are interested in a wide spread of games – whilst Doctor Who Magazine is aimed at the viewers of one specific television show. My magazine will be able to take inspiration from this, as it is aimed at the fans of one specific game that has a low news output.

The magazine is published by Panini Comics – who’s parent company is the UK division of Marvel Comics. This suggests that the magazine is being directed at a large reader-base and will have a sizeable budget behind it. This is reinforced through the fact that it can be seen in the majority of supermarkets throughout the country. Some people may argue that this is not necessary, as it would be assumed that the magazine appeals to a mostly male audience between the ages of 16 and 50 (if you accept the self-perpetuating stereotype that the nerd community is mostly male). Psycho-graphically, the magazine could be said to appeal to main-streamers – who would be watching the programme because it is popular and would therefore have their interest of the magazine come from this. it could also be said to appeal to aspirers, who could look up to the production of the programme and aspire to be a part of it. It may be said to appeal to explorers, due to the magazines wide variety in article types. Under the ‘Uses and Gratifications Theory’, we could say that the magazine is used as a diversion for the audience – an escape from their boring repetitive lives into the exciting world of pulp science fiction.

Doctor Who Magazine fits the general conventions of the science fiction/nerd culture genre in a precise way – mostly because of its large publishing house and fan-base. As seen in previous examples, the magazine uses graphical elements to reinforce the content of the articles and features – both in the ways that it can use images to add to a visual aesthetic of an article (like in the article about ‘The Girl Who Died’) and the way that the images can enhance the point of specific articles and reinforce ideas in an audiences head (such as how the feature on ‘Millennium FX’ contains examples of their work to show readers how vital their work is on the programme). They also use colours in a conventional way – where they will allow each feature to have an individual colour scheme and use these schemes to bring attention to specific parts of the page. Examples of this can be seen in other aspects of my coursework.

While this magazine acts as a notable example of a magazine that has mainstream appeal whilst focusing on a smaller topic, I will be taking my of my visual cues from magazines like PC Gamer – which is distributed by Future PLC. This conglomerate is involved with many sections of the media industry (Film. Video Games and Music being notable examples) – with many of their publications holding high notoriety. Along with ‘Total Film’ and ‘Tech Radar’, ‘PC Gamer’ is “the number one PC games authority on the planet” (www.futureplc.com). As a subsidiary of this magazine, they also operate the ‘Golden Joystick Awards’ – which themselves act as the Oscars of the gaming industry and have wide influence. Interestingly, they are also the publishing house behind the Official Xbox Magazine – which suggests their high influence.

From all of this, the production values behind the magazine become evidently clear  and we can start to realize how mainstream this magazine is. We could infer from this that the magazine appeals directly to the main-streamers, who will follow whatever is popular. However, it could be argued that the magazine appeals towards explorers due to the purposefully wide subject area of the magazine – there’s so much content to explore that the readers could be argued to be adventurous within the medium. Demographically, the magazine could be said to appeal to a similar audience to ‘Doctor Who Magazine’; if you stay within the mindset of the previously mentioned stereotypes. However, the magazine could be said to self-perpetuating these stereotypes as it appeals to the same audience that have been ridiculed for having interest in gaming for many years – whilst there is wide appeal it still mainly serves to act as an escape for this traditional audience.

As seen in my Genre Research, the cover of PC Gamer magazine will often feature an overly-exaggerated high octane shot of a game protagonist in a way that will appeal to this traditional male audience. A difference in-between this magazine and Doctor Who Magazine is their representations of gender and traditional masculinity. Even though Doctor Who has always been based around an inherently sexist premise (a male lead with a female “assistant” ), the show has slowly accepted its position  as a family show and strayed away from the traditional portrayals of gender (and, by osmosis the magazine has done the same thing). However, PC Gamer has always taken the position as showing male leads as either being hyper-masculine (Think Batman or the leads from Street Fighter) or so far away from the traditional view of masculinity that they become a joke (Think the majority of the Nintendo characters). However, for female characters the specification has always been that they must be overtly sexual (both through implication and explicit nudity) – with each moderate female character being seen as a deviation from the norm. In my magazine, I will aim for a more representative, moderate view of demographics through a more diversified representation of gender and race.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magazine Article – Style Model Analysis

Reflections of Genre Research

For my magazine, I would like to take a modern, diverse approach towards the Dungeons and Dragons audience-base. To do this, I would abandon many of the tropes that have been established with Dragon Magazine and aim towards a more generalised audience. This could be done through changing the hero shots on the front cover from an obscure Dungeons and Dragons character to a shot of something important relating to the community – such as news or shots of community projects. I would also have quite a diverse range of cover stars, to enforce the new idea that Dungeons and Dragons is open to all players – whether they fit the conventional nerd stereotype or not. In a more general term, I want to replicate the cover aesthetic of a gaming magazine and move away from the outdated look of Dragon Magazine. This cover art appealed to the very insular nerd community of the 1980s; a time when the community was not in a period of growth and was self-perpetuating in how inclusive it was. If my magazine was to replicate the look of a modern gaming magazine, I could appeal to the modern Dungeons and Dragons players – many of whom will be novices.

My product will be able to engage with readers through these many features. However,  the contents of the magazine will also appeal to the wider audiences who could be reading  my magazine. As I am planning to cover Dungeons and Dragons in wider worldly contexts (such as how it is played around the world and the effect it has had on the wider cultural world), the magazine will appeal to modern audiences who will be more aware of the growth of this community and the world around them. As it will also be a free magazine distributed on the internet, there would be no editorial control of the content included within the magazine – allowing for a wide range of content and interests. For instance, I was planning on including an article about a creative project my friend has produced relating to the Dungeons and Dragons game. The magazine would be free to explore the many avenues of what Dungeons and Dragons means to specific groups and could help to create unity between the older fans who would read ‘Dragons Magazine’ and the newer fans.

Because of this process, I have learnt the specifics of both how conventional nerd magazines operated when the community was more inclusive; and the modern landscape of entertainment and gaming magazines (which has taken many tropes from the conventional nerd culture). As mentioned previously, I have noted the stylistic differences between these two genres – specifically the differences in aesthetic when it comes to cover art. This research has allowed my knowledge of magazine aesthetic throughout the decades to become wider, and now I have a good idea on how I can appeal to different sub-cultures of a larger community.

Genre Research

The genre of magazine that I have decided to write within is the niche market of nerd interest magazines (although it may be classified as an entertainment magazine). Specifically, I want to make a magazine based around the game of Dungeons and Dragons and the community around it. I have decided to choose this genre of magazine, as I am closely involved with a community of people who are highly engaged with the culture of the game, which will allow my articles and information on the backdrop of the game. There is also a large amount of material to work with within the community of the game – which can range from information on the game to personal pieces about exceptional personalities within the fan-base.

List of highest-grossing gaming magazines

Magazine Name	Readership	Founded	Publisher
Game Informer Magazine	5,073,003	1991	GameStop
GamePro	2,454,000	1989	IDG
Official Xbox Magazine	348,619	2001	Future PCL
Nintendo Power	206,107	1988	Nintendo
Playstation: The Official Magazine	192,407	2006	Future Publishing
PC Gamer	158,767	1993	Future PLC
Electronic Gaming Monthly	135,000	1988	EGM Media, LLCedia, LLC
Beckett Massive Online Gamer	130,000	1984	Beckett Media

Front Covers:

Looking at the front covers of gaming magazines from a general overview, we can see that they follow many conventional tropes that would be seen in western magazines. When I say this, I mean that they all feature a visually striking hero shot with one main subject – which itself is a trope of most magazines. However, on the majority of these magazines the subject is holding some sort of weapon or striking a pose that implies danger and excitement, giving the impression that the magazine will generally be quite high-octane. To add to this sense, the magazine covers will also contain a multitude of cover lines that will often state exciting headlines or news on upcoming games.

Depending on the tone of the game that is being promoted on the front cover of the magazine, the colour schemes can vary from only featuring two colours to containing a multitude of colours to promote different games. For instance, the Batman cover for Xbox uses a binary colour scheme of black and white for the images and text that involve the Batman franchise. However, a mild green is used to stand out against the black and white for features that relate directly to the Xbox (or the other games that are available for the system)

The genre subverts typical magazine convention through its use of cover stars. As it could be argued that the gaming industry has a large variety of game leads, magazines discussing this industry have a large selection to choose from – which also allows the aesthetic of the gaming magazines to change erratically from issue to issue. However, it could be argued that most mainstream games have a tendency to feature white, built male leads who tend to be conventionally handsome – which could be seen as reinforcing the worst conventions of a typical magazine to a new extreme. As mentioned previously, the typical pose of a hero with a weapon and a fierce position can start to become worn out and bland after while – so the genre has its own basis to create new clichés.

A magazine that is extremely similar to the one I am planning to produce is Dragon Magazine. For many of the earlier editions, Dragon Magazine would have the hand drawn artwork take centre-stage on the magazine cover – with limited cover-lines. For the later issues, they did not choose to update their house-style and chose to remain with their 80’s aesthetic. As they have a small, dedicated fanbase they have creative liberty to have a set list of aesthetic consistencies; even if they are not widely accepted. The magazine covers will also usually contain a high-octane action shot, which seems to be in an effort to appeal to very dedicated fans.

Contents Page

 

When gaming magazines were aimed pre-dominantly at a younger audience, there was a high emphasis on using a wide range of colours – as well as being engaging for a child. This is why there was initially a strong emphasis on this wide range of pastel colours, as well as the large variety of images and shots from the featured games. However, the target audience for gaming consoles has shifted in parallel to the evolution of Dungeons and Dragons. However, both of these had very different audiences in the early 1980s, with their introduction to the collective media zeitgeist only happening in the last decade. As mentioned earlier, Dungeons and Dragons went from being a niche nerd item to being widely accepted over the course of these years; whilst video games went from children’s toys to being widely popular. Because of this, the colour schemes of the typical gaming magazine became much more tame – with the colour red being used frequently used. This colour has obvious connotations of danger and even blood, both of which are cultural monoliths of the modern gaming landscape (within the games, not the industry to an extent).

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The modern gaming magazine has a adopted the common trope of having many images, most of which are unrelated to each other thematically. Whilst this was originally conceived to appeal to younger audiences with a low attention span, there are added benefits to having a large variety of images in gaming magazine contents pages. The ultimate advantage is that a large amount of new games are released every month, the majority of which would want to be featured in the magazine (that is, for the console releases). Along with this, there are many upcoming games that the magazine would be anxious to report on. The large variety of images allows the magazine to not be contracted to only one game – it has the ability to give each one equal importance. However, for my Dungeons and Dragons magazine, there are not enough different DLC packs released every month to fill this range, so many of the articles would have to be think-pieces. A magazine that achieves this is Doctor Who Magazine; which showcases both news and think pieces through its contents page, whilst also presenting a great variety of images.

Articles

Studying Doctor Who Magazine and Empire Magazine, I have noticed that the opening pages of their featured articles will create a tonality that reflects the mood of the article. These colour schemes will often be used throughout the entire magazine (such as Empire’s  red and white colour scheme for their film articles) but in the case of Doctor Who Magazine, it is entirely flexible to the content of the article. For example, the “Back to Scaro!” uses a white and light blue colour scheme, which is reflective of the 60s nostalgic vibe that the episode aims to replicate (especially through the replication of original sets from the time period and the re-use of classic Daleks). Similarly, the “Flight Through Eternity” article aims to invoke a sense of 1960s nostalgia though the choice of a mellow white, grey and purple colour scheme. As the text is all in fairly light tones, the large monochrome portrait shot of Peter Purves acts as the centrepiece of the double page spread. Another common trope of this sort of magazine is that a selected quotation will often be lifted from the article and presented in the secondary colour of the double-page spread and given significance within the layout (usually in the bottom-right corner). The quotation picked will often be a good summary of the point or message of the article.  For example, the article about the Doctor Who DVD run has the stand-out quotation of “There was quite a lot of debate about DVD. Would the fans say: ‘Am I going to buy it again just for this additional material?'”. This quotation tells us that the DVD range had quite a troubled start and there was much debate as to whether the range could sell – which uses the reader’s preexisting knowledge that the DVD range would succeed to intrigue them into what the history consisted of and entice them into reading the story of the article.

In general, the format of the later part of the articles will be highly graphical – mostly in an appeal to keep the focus of the targeted audience. This will often be because of the fact that readers of Sci-Fi/Fantasy interest magazines do not usually correlate with an audience type who will be captivated enough by the words of the articles. This is a standard within general entertainment magazines, where the graphics are not necessary for the article to be read (unlike something like a cooking magazine where the pictures are needed). However, much of the time the pictures will add to the experience of reading the article and give readers a more clear idea on the point the article is attempting to make. For example, the article on ‘Millennium FX’ (the special effects company for Doctor Who) has examples of some of the mask work they have provided for the show – to give readers an idea of the height of their accomplishes. The article also includes graphical  inserts of the script excerpts from many of the episode they’ve worked on. This contributes to the text of the article as it allows readers to see the staged involved in the production of the show – and how the Millennium FX company contributes to this production.

 

Reflections on Industry Research

For my magazine, I have decided that I want to do enter a niche genre, which would most likely be distributed on the Internet in order to get the largest reader base within my limited potential audience. Because of this, my magazine could be quite challenging with how it represents certain conventions. For instance, if I was going to produce a magazine following nerd culture, the cover models could feature a wide range of ethnicities, genders and sizes. This would also be possible if I were to produce a theatre magazine, as both of these genres are known to have a very left-leaning audience who would appreciate this diversity. This would be breaking the conventions of many mainstream magazines, who will often use ‘unconventional’ cover models to act as a deviation from the norm rather than aiming to represent their entire reader-base.

Industry Research: The Magazine Industry

Many of the largest magazine publishers fall into two distinct groups; they will either specialise in a highly successful genre that has proven itself to be successful in previous years or create a wide range of magazines taking inspiration from a large genre pool (with the basis of many of these magazines being based upon pre-established media icons). However, many multi-national publishing houses that do not have a strong brand identity (unlike the likes of the Walt Disney Corporation or LucasArts) so they can have a mix of brand-name-recognition and niche genres aimed at smaller audiences.

An example of a large publishing house that meets these criteria is the ‘Immediate Media Company’ – which is a combination of many publishing houses including BBC Magazines. Because of this, they have access to many of the BBC’s famous IPs, such as Top Gear, Doctor Who and the various CBeebies properties. They can also use pre-existing properties through the Radio Times, which showcases many upcoming media properties on the TV and Radio whilst acting as a service for advertisement and promotions. However, Immediate Media Company also produce magazines within some of the more niche genres such as ‘Love Crochet. However, many of these niche genres act as sister magazines to prime-time BBC programmes, such as how the ‘BBC Gardener’s World’ magazine accompanies ‘Countryfile’ on BBC2. An american example of this sort of multi-genre spanning publishing house is Time. Inc, who are the publishers of many of the USA’s most popular magazines. Alongside the company’s flagship publication of Time Magazine, they also publish People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated, with other many publications covering a wide range of genres and styles. They have merged with Warner Communications in the past and this, mixed with their vast appeals, have allowed their publication house to grow in notoriety and popularity (with total assets of $4.8 billion as of 2015).

Condé Nast are another large multi-media conglomerate in the United States who focus primarily on magazine publication. However, they are notable as the majority of their publications focus on the fashion genre and industry, with the company holding a brand identity of high class and elitism. They are highly successful in the United States, with their consumer base covering 120 million people and the current owner of the publishing house (Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr.) being worth $9.5 billion. However, if we lookout their online output and presence, we can start to understand where the future of magazine publishing could be heading. The company has been reluctant for many years to enter the online publishing race, instead wanting to keep the physical print system alive. However, in recent years the company has been able to collect enormous amounts of data about it’s consumers and provide them with advertisements that tailor directly to their interests. An extension of this is their acquisition of Reddit. Reddit could be seen as the ultimate magazine in the information age; with users being able to follow sub-reedits that appeal directly to their interests. The website can then create front-pages that are based both on the user’s interests and what other users have rated highly using their up-voting system. This shows us that the future of the magazine industry could be heading towards a more consumer-based system and a less defined version of genre.

The market for amateur magazines has expanded in recent years due to the new distribution methods available. Although the new information distribution methods outlined previously have been popular with the majority of internet users, many people have grown attached to the form of the magazine and non-professionals have started to produce their own magazines within niche genres. Examples of magazines like this that started online include ‘Intern Magazine’ and ‘Hole and Corner’ Magazine; however other magazines have migrated online for economic reasons. The trend to publish both online and in print has become increasingly popular for larger magazines, including Time Magazine and Doctor Who Magazine. Many of the magazines that are not widely published are also available for free online as a way to encourage distribution and popularity – which is vital for newcomers or those within a niche market. However, many amateur producers in a niche market will charge for their magazines due to the high demand within their reader base.