2. Front cover
• The first task for my front cover was to create
my main image, which was fairly simple to do
besides one issue I had – the fact I used a green
screen and a flash. Some of the green
reflection ended up on my main image, but I
was able to make some hue changes to get rid
of as much of it as possible.
• Going off of my pre-
production, I had a
red and black colour
scheme planned for
the front cover. I
experimented
multiple ways of
how to get this
colour pattern to
come off, and the
result was a radial
gradient that you
see on the left.
• The copy (the text) on the whole was quite
interesting to experiment with, in regards to both
the lexical choices and the design choices. The
masthead “Off The Script” originally used the
Lemon Milk font for all the words, however I changed
“Script” to be shown in Road Rage font and I think
the mixture of the two fonts has paid off with a
good design. As for the lexical choices I made, my
headline was “Sebastian Blaze Speaks!” before I
dropped the verb “speaks” for preferences sake.
• I didn’t want a lot of features on the magazine
cover, as I felt that the main image does well to fill
the cover and the headline & cover lines tell the
information that is necessary for the central
figure’s article. However I did feel that
contextually, because the character is pretty much
a “nobody” in wrestling at this point, more
features were needed to entice the audience that
little bit more, hence the footer featuring
established wrestling names like Rikishi, Christian
Cage and Sami Zayn.
There’s also a competition splash
that was added on, as well as a
Wrestlemania preview.
3. • The idea of a competition page was actually supposed to be a
merchandise page at the beginning of my planning. However as
I was running out of time and I still needed a back cover, I
thought that doing a page promoting a competition for the
back cover would be a good idea – especially considering I had
alluded to it on the front cover.
• I wanted to create an “old school” vibe to the poster, in this
case the main source here is the colour scheme being a
mixture of off-yellow/pale-ish yellow with bold red text, to be
similar to old wrestling posters which adopted the same colour
palette (the photos here don’t show it well, but you can see
the background colour scheme being an off-yellow with a
white border as well).
Back cover
• Because I don’t actually own a replica of the “Big Gold” World Heavyweight belt, this was one of the few pages in my project where I
had to borrow images off of the internet in order to complete. The Big Gold belt and the limited edition variants of the Bullet Club T-
shirts were taken from Fandu Belts and Pro Wrestling Tees specifically.
• I think the York Whiteletter font really works well for this poster as it fits with a retro-style piece of work, and because the colour
scheme fits with the font I chose. The heading of the poster is seen to look like a red ribbon going across the top, and borders I used for
the sub-heading “How to enter” looks almost like a nameplate that would traditionally go onto a championship belt, making it work
even more.
5. • I had some initial trouble with the choice and execution of the close-up shot that I wanted to
use for the left hand page of the first interview double page spread. The main issue arose as
another green screen problem, with the green reflection caused by the flash proving hard to
even by darkening the hue. However, I did manage to work it out by also lowering the hue
for the cyans, and it did turn out quite well for on top of the red background, which is in this
case a straight red to black colour gradient. This was done to maintain a consistent colour
scheme throughout the project.
• There was a little more work done to the close-up image, such as removing facial spots and
increasing the hue’s contrast to make the face appear looking more red, whilst the blue
denim jacket has been darkened to a point that it actually stands out against the red.
Interview pages 1 & 2
• The copy was vital to this part of the project, considering it's meant to be
an interview page. The headline was a bit of a struggle because I wanted
to try and think of something clever that relates to the character's name of
Sebastian Blaze - "Lighting the Fire" has connotations both the characters
surname of Blaze, and the fact he's supposedly a rising star and getting his
big break in the wrestling business (figuratively lighting the fire to his
wrestling career).
• The answers themselves don't follow the rules of kayfabe (in other words,
the responses are out of character), opting to gain an audience connection
with his honest and thoughtful answers to the questions, as well as
engaging with the interviewer, hoping to gain a positive response from his
audience.
6. Final product – Interview pages 1 & 2,
double page spread
Other things to note:
• The pull quote on the left
side of the page is a general
feature in magazine interview
articles
• The smaller caption was
moved from the header of
the left page to the bottom of
the left page
• There's another photo from
my shoot, this time with the
figure in in-ring gear and a
change in lighting and colour
scheme, a white and black
radial gradient.
• The background colour of the
copy side (right) isn't fully
grey, but more of a red-ish
grey.
7. Interview pages 3 & 4
• The decision making process for this section was
fairly similar to the previous double page spread.
Notice that the colour scheme is similar, including
the very grey-ish red on the left hand side (with all
the copy in columns of three going down the page).
The black space in the top right hand corner of the
left hand side page is space reserved for one of my
photos.
• There is yet another pull quote from the article, this
time placed below the interview copy itself, simply
to show off more of my understanding of magazine
articles and their layout.
• There was mass change to how the right hand side
would turn out. I initially wanted to highlight 5
matches as a section for the character to name his
favourite 5 matches, however I dropped it down to 3
so that the page wouldn’t get oversaturated with
pictures from past events, as well as the descriptions
that I give to each match, each of which bordered
and filled by black space behind the copy. The font
for the heading also changed from Road Rage to
Lemon Milk to make it look a bit less extravagant
than the interview.
9. Tour poster
• The first idea I had for a poster was as something to put on the
back cover of the magazine, however it ended up becoming a
double page spread for a meet and greet tour with the
character, something for the magazine to promote and would
be placed in the exact middle page of the magazine with the
staples in the middle.
• I based this on a paper tear design that I have managed to
habitually perform with practice from the pre-production
experiments and even before that. The premise of the paper
tear design is that one half of it will have one effect and the
other half will have another, so I decided to create a brick
layout as the one background and a rotting/stained steel
background for the other, and then I did my best to create an
effect for each half of the face by altering the hue, opacity or
filter. For the rotted half I reduced the face's opacity and chose
the overlay blending option. Meanwhile for the brick half the
face was changed by increasing the contrast and decreasing the
brightness, all the whilst making my face appear paler with a
layer mask and altering the blue and yellow hue.
• The tour dates had to go on the other half, making me choose
to put up another paper tear with the rotting background on
the right as well. Other things included were ticket information,
social media details and a small print at the very bottom of the
poster.
10. Final product – Tour poster, to go in the
stapled centre of the magazine
One oversight that I am aware
of is that my shoulder has
presumably disappeared as it
isn't visible on the right hand
side of the tear, however this
was merely because I cropped
the shoulder off of the close-
up image far too soon.
