2. Effectiveness of Research
I believe the research I did for this project was very effective and helped a lot in my
final product.
This started with the research into MMA journalist Ariel Helwani and examples of his
work, as well as learning about his background in the sport. An example of how
learning about his background helped is where I learnt about his approach to his work,
which is that he feels he needs to report on everything and that is his duty to his fans,
I related to this as I wanted my magazine to involve as much as possible as people who
are fans of the magazine then are paid off through the knowledge they gain from the
product.
As well as this I believe that researching into a graphic designer also helped with my
product as it helped me realise what it can take to get into a successful position in this
industry, as when I researched David Carson he had gone around many different
places and trying many different things before he found what worked, and this was a
unique style, which made him highly wanted by many different companies, which is
why he ended up doing a lot in the graphic design world. He became famous due to
being different and standing out, which is the best way to be in the industry, as if you
are the same as everyone else you will fade into the background.
3. Effectiveness of Research pt. 2
Another method of my research was the audience research, and for
this I did a survey based on MMA and shared it in a Facebook group
that has MMA fans in it in order to get relevant answers, I think this
made it very effective as it was asked to the perfect target audience
due to them being fans of the subject, rather than just asking the class
to answer questions when they may not know much about the subject
matter. This also helped me to gauge certain aspects of my audience,
such as a male/female percentage, ages and how much of a fan of
MMA they are, for example if they are just fans of UFC or fans of the
entire sport. This helps me to appeal to my audience more due to
knowing specifics of what they may be like, making me know how to
draw them into reading my magazine, an example of this is where I ask
a question based on what would make them read an MMA based
magazine and a couple of people answered Conor McGregor, which
made me involve him in my stories when before there was no plan for
me to involve him in the magazine.
4. Effectiveness of Research pt. 3
The next way I researched was through looking at existing products. The first
of these I looked at was The Ring, a boxing magazine and one of the most
popular combat sports magazines currently in production. This helped me in
my production as it gave me reasons as to it’s popularity, as I believe most
sports fans prefer the professional way that the magazine is set out and the
way it reports on the sport. Most fans of sports prefer a prestigious magazine
that is well respected, rather than an artistic approach, as this isn’t
representative of sports. Another magazine I looked at was an MMA based
magazine called “Fighters Only”. With there not being many popular MMA
based magazines this is one of the most well known in MMA, yet still doesn’t
do well in comparison with the size of the sport and other magazines from
elsewhere in other sports. Researching the magazine helped me to
understand why it may not be as popular as it probably should be, as well as
seeing what it also does right to make it still be one of the biggest in the
sport, it showed me what to avoid when dealing with MMA journalism.
5. Effectiveness of Research pt. 4
Despite these effective parts of my research there were
also parts I could have done better, for example only
researching magazines that were similar to what I am
designing. I did this at the time as I believed this would be
the best way, as I could see the industry standards and
see the do’s and don'ts of sport magazines, but now I
realise that I could have used aspects from other popular
sorts of magazines to broaden the skills I could use, as
well as possibly meaning more fans and eyes on he
product. I also should have researched ways of
advertisement for these existing products rather than just
the way they are designed, as I could have used some of
these things in order to get my product seen.
6. Final Concept
My original final concept was to make a business model for a sports
company, the main part of this being the magazine that I produced,
but originally my plan was to have an end of year 2018 in MMA review.
This ended up changing to a quarterly magazine and this being done
based on the months January to March in 2019, this is due to the time
taken to produce everything from my concept to the time I started
planning my actual project I had lost interest in the going’s on from
MMA in last year, and more relevant events were in my head, those
that had just happened and those that are coming up soon at the time
of producing the magazine. In addition to this in my concept I also
stated that I would make more than just the magazine, such as
advertisements for the company and possibly a website. I ended up
not doing this part of my concept and only concentrating on the
magazine, I believe this was due to me wanting to make a very
detailed magazine and also having 24 pages of this, due to wanting to
cover as much as possible.
7. Planning
I believe the planning stage of this project went very
smoothly and helped a lot when it came to designing my
product. Firstly I used the planning stage to come up with
what every different page of my magazine would consist
of as well as then writing every single article in the
magazine that I would need to in order to produce the
magazine. Tis helped me save a lot of time during the
design as instead of worrying about having to write many
different articles while also trying to design the aspects of
the magazine on every different page, I could place the
articles in straight from this PowerPoint.
8. Planning pt. 2
The next way I believe my planning helped me is through
my planning of different colour schemes to use during
production. For this I used Adobe Colour Wheel. This is a
website which extracts possible colour schemes from
images, I used images such as the UFC logo to work out
colour schemes for things that are based on the UFC. As
well as this another thing in my planning was choosing
possible fonts to use in my product, this was another
good way to save time as when I needed to find a new
font I could go back to this in order to quickly see possible
fonts to use. As well as separating the fonts into different
uses, for example ones for block text and ones for
headlines.
9. Planning pt. 3
The next effective way I used planning was
through my layout plans, they helped me to
realise what was needed on certain pages and
how to structure this, for example the front
cover including different side stories, this helped
me realise how to fit everything onto the pages.
The schedule I produced can be considered a
negative of my planning, this was as I didn’t stick
to this during my production and fell behind at
points due to this.
10. Technical Problems
I think I combatted technical problems well during the production. Firstly before I
started the production I decided to do some experiments in order to realise what I
would need to learn before starting my production. Firstly I decided to write an article
on an old fight that I hadn’t before seen. I hose Lesnar V Carwin from UFC 116, this is
as I haven’t seen the fight before yet I am familiar with both fighters and therefore it
would be similar to writing an article on any of the fights from the past few months of
MMA, as I will know the competitors but not the fight. This experiment served as good
practice in the way to structure an article based on fighting, I decided a round by
round approach and then a general review at the end was a good way forward, and I
took this too my final product, doing this in all of the fight reviews that I wrote in the
magazine.
I then did another experiment based on a double page spread, I decided to do this on
the 2019 SuperBowl as it was relevant at the time, and also similar to the subject, but
different enough to make sure there wouldn’t be any cross over in this and what i
create in my final magazine. This also worked well as it showed me how to structure
each page, how to work the articles around images.
11. Product Intentions
I believe my product did well in comparison with my intentions when
starting the product design. This is due to my main intention was for
this product to be a professional MMA based magazine and I believe it
achieved this. Through unbiased journalism and detail, as well as sleek
looking pages that are designed in a minimalistic way in order to make
the content of the articles stand out. This was the intention due to
there not being anything of this kind in MMA. Another intention was
to attempt to cover as many stories from the months of January to
March in MMA that I possibly could, as well as reporting on things that
aren’t just mainstream news in MMA that everyone would know about
even if they didn’t read the magazine, I wanted to bring something
unique and I believe I did this through the blend of popular news as
well as cult level news in the world of MMA and bringing all of this
together in a professional sports journalism way.
12. Peer Feedback
To do my peer feedback I am going to use a
similar method to how I got answers to my
survey. By asking people who I know for a fact
are MMA fans, whether casual or hardcore, this
will make the answers more relevant as it can be
judged more on content as well as the design,
rather than someone in the class looking and
just judging the magazine off of the technical
qualities of the design.
13. Peer Feedback 1
• Do you think the magazine fits the theme of MMA? How does/doesn't it?
– Yes it does. Full of mma content. Shows a lot of knowledge
• Would you say the magazine looks professional? How does/doesn't it?
– Looks very professional. I like the full spread features on fighters. Plus how
every page has a full background but can still easily read the text.
• What type of MMA fan are you (casual, hardcore, etc.)? How do you think
this appeals to you as this type of fan?
– Casual. Appeals to me as has full reviews and upcoming fights. Feature include
backgrounds of fighters to keep me upto date with whats going on
• What would you say is the best aspect of the magazine and why?
– I really like the rankings as its unique with both ufc bellator and other
organisations fighters all ranked together plus a pound for pound. Also liked
the insight and analysis on Henry Cujedo
• What would you say is the worst aspect of the magazine and how would
you suggest to improve this?
– Although there weren't many big female fights in the months of the mag there
was no mention of women other than the rankings.
14. Peer Feedback 2
• Do you think the magazine fits the theme of MMA? How does/doesn't it?
• Would you say the magazine looks professional? How does/doesn't it?
• What type of MMA fan are you (casual, hardcore, etc.)? How do you think this appeals to you as this type
of fan?
• What would you say is the best aspect of the magazine and why?
• What would you say is the worst aspect of the magazine and how would you suggest to improve this?
15. Peer Feedback 3
• Do you think the magazine fits the theme of MMA? How does/doesn't it?
• Would you say the magazine looks professional? How does/doesn't it?
• What type of MMA fan are you (casual, hardcore, etc.)? How do you think this appeals to you as this type
of fan?
• What would you say is the best aspect of the magazine and why?
• What would you say is the worst aspect of the magazine and how would you suggest to improve this?
