45ry

1. Experiments
Harry Allinson

2. Front Cover Process

3. • At the start of making my own experimental cover, I decided to formulate a
background, in which has a simple blue horizontal rectangular shape laid above a
pure black background so that the blue pops out and contrasts with the black thus
looks makes base background look good to the eye.
• Further more, I decided to carry on in my quest to create a background that looked
good and relates in some way to the topic of the magazine at hand so that it would
make the product more appealing to the audiences that are interested in the sport
of MMA. As a a result of my thought process, I began to add a textural overlay to
my background to make it look more grunge thus reflecting & being symbolic of the
violent and gritty nature of the Mixed Martial Arts.
• After creating my background, I began to cut out both Connor and Cowboy (the
fighters on the cover) from an image I had got off of images using the pen tool in
Photoshop because the pen tool is one of if not preferably the best tool to cut
things and people out of images because of the tools precise mechanism of action
when you use it because you can hold and drag the pen tool if you want to bend
round certain sections of an image, which makes it helpful for cutting round
something that has mild to complex imagery.
• Also I decided to cut these fighters out of an already existing image so that I could
prop them both on a new background that I had created so that not only does to
look more original but that I can use these layers of the fighters and add effects to
them to make them stand out to the appropriate amount so that the fighters pop
out more on the magazine cover with the color effects like curve and saturation so
that those effects are isolated onto those specific fighters as their own layers so
that there's nothing other in the background that could look ugly and distracting
from the focal point of this magazine cover.
• From this stage of my experimental process I began to start adding text, more
specifically the ”CONNOR MCGREGOR VS COWBOY”, on the left-hand side of the
magazine because it would leave space for other texts that would be added from
this point in the processes and also after I transformed and placed the text to the
side, it made the magazine feel more like a magazine and made the magazine look
better in my opinion because it filled in the empty space on the magazine.
Front Cover Process

4. • Moving on from my previous process I began to add text onto my
cover that said both, ”Biggest welterweight so far this year!” & “Up
and coming fighters”, because it made for a magazine cover that has
alluring textural information on it that would give people more intent
to want to buy the product since it would make the cover more
interesting in the eye’s of the primary audience, specifically. After
adding these two texts I began to add more like this, “TKO” & ‘Post
fight interviews”, which continued this effect and filled in the empty
spaces, which made the cover look better visually and
informationally.
• Then I added the, “MMA NEWS #47” to showcase the name of the
magazine and the number of the magazine so that people know what
the magazine is when they look at the product so that they are
informed on the type of magazine it is. Also I added a silhouette of a
MMA fighter preforming a kick into the title with blood splatter
because it looks cool and also the blood is a reference to the sport
because there is blood shed when the fighters are in the cage and
also the color red is symbolic of war so it fits well into this cover
because the reference of the color red is relevant to the sport.
• To make the text stand out more in the fore grounds of the very
background and the two fighters, I decided to add strokes of black
when the text was white and white when the text was colored
red/blue which help enclose the colors, which allowed the text to be
more visible.
Front Cover Process

5. Reflection
• What elements of your experiments will you include in
your final product?
• Within my experiment of my magazine cover, I will use elements that are relevant and reflect of the
subject of the product. Such as the grunge background that reflected the grittiness of MMA in my
experimental cover. I will use this element of adding things to be symbolic of because it makes products
feel more legitimate since there is a link via the colours and the shapes to the subject and/or subject of
the product which makes the product better (more professional) in many cases so that is why I will be
using this element in my product.
• As well as in my product I will also do some cuttings out of my own images of my that I will take so that
I can either make the cut-out stand out on a image or cut them out and put them onto another image
so that I can formulate something will look potentially more aesthetically pleasing so that when I have
finally produced my product it can look more appealing to my primary audience since if I can put my
cut of my self on whatever drop back that I want I can make the drop back appeal to the my
demographic via colours that appeal to a certain age and/or gender thus making my product better for
my audience’s preference since they will enjoy my product more as it will have elements that will have
most appealing to that certain demographic.
• When I make my magazine cover I will also use certain textual information to influence or draw people
into the product so that the product will do better since if it has information on the front that is alluring
like on my experiment that says, “Biggest welterweight so far this year” then it will add a tint of
attraction to the product if that because when a magazine is released then it can sometimes have text
on text will information that it very eye catching and interesting.

6. Double Page Spread

7. Double Page Process
At the start of my double page spread creation I first found a high resolution image of both Cowboy and Conor (MMA fighters) because that is
the topic of my experiment and I chose these fighters because there very popular and when creating a product, especially a magazine it is a
good idea to use trending and/or popular topics like these fighters because people look up to these people since they are successful figures
in Mixed Martial Arts because it makes the product overall most attractive to the majority of a population hence if I did it on someone less
popular then less people would know about that person which would mean that product wouldn't do as well in a market if the aim of selling
that product is to try to appeal to a large amount of people. After finding these images, like in my experimental cover, I used the pen tool
because its very efficient tool to use to cut-out the fighters. After cutting these fighters out of a high resolution image it proceeded to
desaturate and place them on a black background so that they would stand out more. From there because I knew that I would add text from
this point, I decided to decrease the opacity so that it wasn’t obnoxiously visible on the spread so that I could place text over it so that it
would leave room for the ratio of balance of the text to the fighters to be visually balanced so that it would make it look less messy,
complimentary and ugly thus making the relationship between the background (fighters) and foreground (text) more complimentary.
After this I quickly added a boarder and blurred it that there would be a satisfying color fade at the sides of the spread. Originally it was pure
white, however I thought of the idea that I would make both side symbolic of the circumstances of the outcome of the fight because I
thought that would have been a more appropriate and relevant artist input to the spread. As a result of my idea I decided to make Conor’s
side green to reference the fact that he won the fight and Cowboys side red because he lost. Also this was a good idea because it visually
showed who won and who lost, it also did the spread justice because it filled in the empty areas and did so with vibrancy which made
vibrancy, which made the spread that bit more aesthetic to the themes of the subject and stylistic.
The final stage of this section of my double page spread process I added, “VS” and “UFC #246”, which was stepping stone for the text of the
fighters names so that I can build the structure of my final experimental double page spread bit by bit so that I can progressively build it up
with organization so that it isn’t messy and so that I efficiently build my double page spread in orderly fashion so that the outcome will be
more smooth and there will be less overwhelming challenges then if I, for example didn’t cut of the fighters and tried to randomly try and
configure a background, then text which would most likely make it so that I would have to guess the alignments of the text to the fighters
which would be risky and cause potential time loss, which wouldn’t be a risk I would want to take since there is time constraints with this
project so it would be in my own best interests use my time efficiently and save it so that I can use the extra time of other areas of my work.

8. Finally I added lorem ipsum text from an online generator on google because this spread was an
experiment and using ipsum was a good tool to use to lay out text on a double page to be
representational of what an existing product would look like, which is what I wanted when entering the
production of this experiment because I knew that this would be a precursor to my final print product
so I wanted to get this one right so that it would allow me to not only create a good experiment but to
help further my understanding of how to make a magazine double page spread that looks realistic and
that has at least an aesthetic tint to it that correlates to the relevant topic at hand upon this
experimental spread so that the experiment didn't feel as if it had unrelated elements to the sport of
MMA that I using for this experiments.
As seen, visibly on my experiment, you can see that the text's on different sides of the spread have
different colors on them, which was changed with the color pallet on Photoshop, which wasn't a
coincidence because I decided when producing this experiment that it would make the spread visually
look more gripping hence there would be more colors to fill up the spread, but more importantly I did
this because it would be relevant to the outcome of the fight because Conor won and Cowboy lost and
so I decided to use the colors that related to victory (Green) and defeat (Red) so that there would be a
link to the fight via the colors because that made reading the sample loran ipsum text more
understanding when you take into consideration the red or green overlays because it perpetuates &
enhances the meaning (Win or Loss) of each fighters outcome and thus allows the interpreter of the
text to understand the perspective and/or points that are being made of both fighters within the text,
which makes the reading of the texts with each individual colors on each side more satisfying then if it
was an unrelated color instead.
After adding the mass loran ipsum text I proceeded to add titles which had a basic font because at the
time I didn't think it was too necessary to a complex to the mix for the titles since it was an experiment.
I added these titles via the text tool in Photoshop, in which you can add a text box in specific location
within your work space where you can add your layers, which was useful for me because for both text
layers I could simply drag and apply a text box to an area & scale the size of the font to its appropriate
propionate perimeters on each side, which was a helpful tool because it make the task of adding the
text easy and not very messy for me which was good because I didn't spend too much time on it, which
allow for me to have more time to move on and add the right, amount of adjustments to the opacity of
the entirety of the layers, apart from the coal black background, at different levels so there was a
satisfying balance between the different layers, which made the whole scene of the magazine's double
page spread better because using the alteration of opacity on different layers allowed for all the
different layers in the spread to pop out at the right amount so that any audiences that can see, can
see the texts well enough for interpretation and the fighter well enough behind the texts so that it
doesn't look too faded into the black background and too obnoxious when the opacity is too high which
would thus render a potentially high chance of a depletion of the visibility of the text, which is why
adding this element of changing the visibility of the layers on the double page spread to the right
degree so that the overall spread looked the best was so useful for my bettering experiment.
Double Page Process

9. Reflection
• What elements of your experiments will you include in your final
product?
• An element within my double page spread, like in my cover, that I would most likely use for within my own final product is that of cutting
someone out of an image to amplify that person within said image or to simply take someone out of an image and put him over and onto
a new image with either the help of a green screen if I want myself for my final magazine product to be placed in front of a new
background or via the pen tool within Photoshop so that I can accurately and efficiently cut certain things out of an image because from
there, once I have used this element from my experiment of cutting a person out an image because I can then use it for more creative
things then if I just left an image of a person within its raw image without taking that person out because once there is a separate layer a
person, then you can put layers over it and under it as well as adding a drop shadow, emboss and bevel, a duplication of a layer with
motion blur (the illusion of movement within a still image) & more commonly the general colour effects (curve, brightness & contrast and
brightness and saturation) to make it pop out and/or to make that person more animated & robust on a print product, which could
potentially be good for a product because if you successful achieve a formulation of a highly important element of a printed product it can
make the overall visual layout array of the product more enhanced hence if a person who is related to the focal points of your product
because then it makes a key figure within the same realm of what is being said within the product more noticeable which could increase
the attraction of a product thus induce more sales, potential and this is why I will probably adopt this element from my experiment for my
final print product.
• Another element from my experiments that I will use in my final product is that I will use symbolic colours and image within my magazine
like when I used the colours red and green in my spread experiment to reference who won and lost via colouration because it is a good
element to apply since it made the spread look more satisfying with that small touch which is thus why I will probably use this is my final
because if executed well with complimentary and creative finesse it can make a product jump hoops in terms of how well it could do
because have visual links between different images of a product can a product more supreme in its outcome after the product because it
can make it look more professional and relatable overall.
• The overall element of all the elements with my experimental double page spread not being overkill is something that I use within my
double page spread because sometimes I can to too much to a product, visually, so allowing myself to develop more of a sensible creative
mindset when going into a specific product where it might be necessary. Even if that means an experiment because it is important for me
as a studier of creative media because it can allow me to use the overall elements of using elements within my product in a more precise
and calculated way, which is a great element that I have constantly learn from creating various products and this experiment because it
allows for certain production processes of products and the processes leading up to a product to be carried with a better understanding
of not only what to expect but also simply to create the product to the right degree of what fits best to the products nature and its theme
that are within it.