CCR Question 1- How has your work challenged/used magazine conventions and how does it represent

social groups or issues?

Images:

In my chosen genre- which I’ve decided to be computer games- the image displayed on my front cover is
somewhat conventional. People would expect a main character holding weapons and looking
intimidating. However, it’s unconventional that my character is a female, instead of a male. In most
video games, the lead role and hero is almost always a male. By choosing a female, I’m challenging the
conventions and stereotypes associated with main characters in computer games. The character I drew
appears bloody; as if they just finished some sort of battle, and I believe this sort of appearance is
conventional on computer game magazines. The colors I used are mostly dark, to give a sense of danger
and hostility. Again, these colors are conventional. The sword she holds and the one on her back have a
purple grip, which makes her appear more feminine. This, however, contrasts her dark clothing,
splattered with blood and the scar alongside smeared blood on her face. The lighting is rather dark and
gloomy, with a soft orange lighting illuminating some of her features from the right. The orange hue
comes from the flames in the background, and the darkness shadowing most of her figure is from the
night. This all conveys a sense of danger and darkness, which is expected from a computer game
magazine like mine.

Layout and form:

My product generally follows the conventional format of a magazine- my front cover has a masthead
containing the title of the magazine at the top, and a small amount of text on the sides of the magazine.
I also added a small circle-colored with colors that contrast the three main colors of the magazine- with
an announcement to attract more attention to that speech bubble. My front cover also has a common
theme of three colors- orange, yellow and black- which makes the cover appear more sophisticated.
However, it’s unconventional that my magazine follows such a color scheme, since retro video game
magazines tend to be more bright and colorful on the front covers, splattered with multiple different
images of various characters from many games. Contradicting this, is my front cover, which aims to
appear more retro than the normal magazines front cover, contains just a single female character as the
main image. However, I added in another image I created of another character from the same game I
am advertising on the front cover. This is conventional because video games usually display images from
different places on their front covers. I included a banner at the top of the magazines front cover which
reads ’10 year special edition’, which makes the magazine appear special and unique.

House style:

For my front cover, I used a sans serif, blocky font for the masthead title. I used this type of font because
it is conventional to use blocky fonts for video game magazines, and because using a serif font indicates
a magazine has a sophisticated nature; which my magazine does not. My magazine aims to represent
the underrated games that have potential to make it big. Therefore, I created an image using a drawing
software called ‘Procreate’ to use on my front cover. On the other hand, I used the space surrounding
the image to advertise games like Call of Duty. However, since I am writing about Call of Duty in
significantly smaller writing, it gives the image that Call of Duty, the famous shooter game, is nothing
compared to ‘Everborne’, which is boldly written across the center of the magazine, with small text
underneath it saying ‘never-ending darkness awaits…’. It is also unconventional that I am hand-drawing
my own front cover using software’s like Photoshop and Procreate. Usually, a front cover is only hand-
drawn when it’s an older video game magazine, common in the 80’s and 90’s. Despite this, I drew my
own front cover- although the image is of a single character instead of a variety of characters clumped
into a single front cover, which is a conventional video game magazine layout. The fonts for the smaller
texts are similar to the titles font. They are both sans serif fonts and blockier in terms of shape. I also
used Photoshop’s text effects to make the text appear more 3D and dramatic. Some of the effects I
commonly used was the ‘bevel and emboss’ to enhance the contours and edges of the letters in the
words.

Representation:

The magazine represents a young female as the main character of a horror game. This is both
conventional and unconventional. Young people are almost always the ones represented as the main
protagonists in video game; so it’s stereotypical that I have used a young person in my front cover.
However, I am representing a female as the lead role, which is not stereotypical or expected; especially
in video games, which are usually a male-dominated field. By using a female character as the lead, I am
representing the percentage of females who play video games and enjoy them, who are usually under-
represented. The character portrayed has a menacing face, with glowing eyes in the dark setting. The
scar on her face and wounds on her body show she has experience in battles, as she appears victorious
amidst the chaotic background.

Issues:

I believe there are hardly any issues with portraying women on the front cover of a computer game
magazine. If anything, it’s only bringing light to the common belief that women are unfit to play
computer games, and are incapable of making a difference to the male-dominated field of gaming. I
challenged such stereotypes by using an experienced female warrior lead as my main character for my
front cover. By doing this, I am raising awareness to the issue stated before, and representing young
females who play and enjoy computer games.

Typical issues:

A typical issue in most computer game magazines nowadays is that they strictly feature characters from
the hottest games of a specific month. Therefore, there is representation of only famous game
characters and not enough of other games. As well as, these characters are almost always a male
character in a computer game, usually heavily armed with dangerous weapons and knives, surrounded
by advanced machinery. In computer games, the main character is always an attractive, western man
with a rough look and a traumatic backstory.