Creative Media Level 3 Year 1 - Final Major Project

1. Evaluation
Will Stewart

2. Production Process Evaluation

3. Research
• I believe the greatest strength of my research to be my product research,
analysing the composition of similar products, the techniques used to create
them, and the reasoning behind the final result. By analysing these topics, I
acquired a better understanding of what material to include in my products,
and where they could be most appropriately placed to incite the desired
reaction from the audience. In regards to the weaknesses of my research, I
believe that I have yet to fully understand the products I chose, and how my
primary research is more personalised to my tastes and does not cover more
fundamental criteria, leaving it lacking in discernment of the types of people
responding to the surveys I sent out. If I were able to improve my research, I
would take a second look at my product research and see whether all aspects
of the chosen material have been covered, and whether the effects of these
individual aspects are dependent on each other. I think if I had done this, then
I would have been able to coordinate my own individual pieces more
efficiently, and would have been more capable of properly finding a place for
each asset I had planned to utilise.

4. Planning
• I believe the greatest strength of my planning is the specificity I have
provided on what I have planned to include, and why I have decided to use
such assets. As the project went further and became more developed, I
was able to fine-tune more details through the use of the provided
documents, expanding upon the planned themes, aesthetics, and
techniques employed in the project, and how they related to the
audience. Weakness-wise, I don’t believe that I fully understood the more
complex terms and aspects of what I was meant to include, such as the
various demographics and how they related to my project outside of the
target audience. Because of this, I think that I moved from one thing to
the next too quickly, without leaving enough room for elaboration on why
I had chosen these elements. If I had the opportunity to improve this area,
I would prioritise fleshing out anything that I believe is lacking in content.

5. Time Management
• In order to properly organise the different aspects of the project, a
schedule was provided that were allowed to design at our leisure, which I
used to place the products I knew I could complete swiftly first and
foremost. I organised the timeslots for each product based on skill level,
with the products incorporating techniques I was more familiar with
sooner on in the timeline, with the production of the ones I was less
experienced with occurring later, so that I had less distractions while I was
working on them. Thanks to this type of schedule I managed to
successfully complete my project on time, with room for improvements in
the coming weeks in areas that are comparatively lacking. I also never
completely set down the specifics of how I would complete the products,
allowing them to be malleable in how they were constructed and the time
necessitating their completion. If I had more time I believe I would be able
to give a final check to each product to make sure that everything is
streamlined and all assets are in proper coordination.

6. Technical Qualities
My personal preference for techniques
is to use simple and basic tools in
combination to produce greater effects.
The tools I use the most are the
polygonal lasso, magic wand, paint
bucket, eyedropper, and text tools.
While all of these are basic and
rudimentary, I prefer using tools that
have straightforward uses, allowing me
to focus more on the overall
composition of the piece and how
everything stacks together rather than
on how any single asset is going to reach
completion.
For more complex effects, I used images
obtained from scouring the internet that
fit the themes of the project, colour
levels to adjust the light and dark in
these images, a texture that bolstered
the surrounding assets, and regular
blending options. Most of those option
choices involved effects that made a
single asset stand out against others and
vice-versa, such as the bevel and
emboss, and outer and inner glows and
shadows.
The coordination and positioning of the
individual assets was central in
generating the desired effect in the
audience. For example the product in
the upper-left corner required careful
selecting, de-selecting, inverting, and
layer coordination to achieve the final
result. Similarly, the product in the
upper-right necessitated arranging the
images in a decreasing sense of scale in
relation to their position. This
resembles the professional product in
the decreasing scale, while the more
fine-tuned colour tones are more
present in the other product. The
professional product is far more
streamlined and fluid than what I have
made, in part because I have very little
skill and experience in artistic pursuits.
It is furthermore made by a
collaborative team rather than a single
designer, with a systematic delegation
to perfect each aspect.

7. Aesthetic Qualities
The foremost methodology of my project was to be
dreamlike, varied, and representative of the inner
material that each product advertised. To properly
demonstrate these themes I decided to spread my
project out across multiple mediums, being poster
and magazine-based in order to focus on the print
area of my skillset. To emphasize the phantasmal
quality I was aiming for I tried to incorporate
fantastic and vivid imagery mixed with symbolic
elements, creating a highly interpretive but bold
atmosphere. Colours, details, and abstract shapes
were the central design elements, as demonstrated
particularly in the posters.
Secondary aesthetics include deeply natural themes
and celestial imagery, creating a dichotomy between
familiar and down-to-earth scenery contrasted
against the alien expanses of the wider universe,
tying into the idea of thematic diversity. The natural
elements are evident in the second poster and front
cover, with the blacked-out trees taking up
prominent places in the image. The solar diagram
and psychedelic vortices in the first poster and DPS,
respectively, hint at the celestial elements, both
resembling cosmic phenomena.
When planning out my project, I wanted to
incorporate many disparate and contrasting
individual themes, and finding some way to make
them work in concert to produce the desired effects.
To make room for everything I needed to find a
system in which each influence was allotted room to
breathe while making space for the others, while still
fitting with the abstract aesthetic. This involved
placing things very closely together in some areas,
while simultaneously attempting to give each aspect
it’s due area.
From a production standpoint, I wanted these
products to seem realistic enough to actually exist
and be plausible. To drive this home, I used the
magazine-based portion of the project to iron out the
more real-world aspects, such as the time frame for
the game’s release and the interview with the
developer shining a light on the thoughts and
feelings put into the development process.

8. Audience Appeal
The main target audience of my project are ages fifteen to thirty-five, ranging from working to upper-
class socioeconomic backgrounds, and with a slightly greater focus on women than men. This aspect
in particular is displayed in the first poster and magazine double-page spread, where a woman’s
silhouette is the foremost layer, and the interview featured is between two women, where a
discussion on the interviewee’s circumstances as a woman in the gaming industry is presented.
Furthermore, the interviewed developer carries my own sentiments regarding the project, in that I
wanted to create something that was unique and nobody had ever seen before. The incorporation of
the wide variety of themes plays into this, working to appeal to an array of audiences through the
intellectual and creative values that they represent, acting as more specialised signals for more niche
markets. The questionnaire I designed for my research phase helped to divine what kinds of qualities
people would want to see in the project, and I noted that there were various opinions on how gender
factored into the project, which helped me to iron out how to properly construct the characters
involved in the DPS product.

9. Peer
Feedback

10. Feedback 1
• What did you like about the product?
– The posters are both very crisp looking and aesthetically pleasing, using very well made colour
schemes.
– Both posters have a degree of mystery behind them, making the reader think deeper about
what it could possibly be about.
– The magazine cover follows the poster’s design in the idea that it shows mysterious patterns
and images.
– The main font used in the designs seems to fit the vibe given by the products.
– The information in the magazine is simply structured and gives the product more accessibility.
• What improvements could have been made to the product?
- The magazine cover could potentially hold more content to fill in the blanks (unless
the design is meant to be simplistic)
- The magazine cover could have a clearer main cover line rather than making the
smaller cover lines the same.
- The dps could have more interactivity with the reader in the space near the cogs
and wheels.
- Some more images like the posters would be a nice addition to the dps to keep the
reader thinking about the product.

11. Feedback 2
• What did you like about the product?
I really like the design of the poster with the colour
wheel as it is very creative. The double page spread
has a good layout and the colour scheme of the
second poster works well
• What improvements could have been made to
the product?
The layout of the front cover looks a bit unfinished
and could be improved with more headers and
images.

12. Feedback 3
• What did you like about the product?
– I loved the range of colours, and how you’ve put them together throughout all
of the products, They contrast with each other, however they work very well.
– Within your double page spread not only did I appreciate the graphics and
colours, I personally loved the actual article itself, very creative and literate.
– I could see your target audience clearly within your products, aimed toward
the more intellectual/women. This was conveyed very well through your work.
• What improvements could have been made to the product?
• The only improvement I have is potentially with the front cover product. I
felt it need more attention to detail particularly on the font, simply to
bring it up to the other products standard.

13. Peer Feedback Summary
• What do you agree with from your peer
feedback?
– I agree that I succeeded aesthetically and contextually, with the overall design and article being
received well by those who delivered feedback.
– Visually, there was more of a focus on the posters than the magazine products, and they had a more
direct impact rather than the more muted front cover or DPS.
– My target audience was made clear in multiple products, especially in the DPS, which favoured text
more than image.
• What do you disagree with from your peer
feedback?
I do not think that each product needs to be directly connected to one another, as while they are
more subtle than the posters, the front cover and DPS still do the job of attracting an audience
well, and injecting the more bombastic qualities from the posters may overcrowd the area,
leading to misdirection and choking the audience.

14. Peer Feedback Summary
I would try to focus more on the magazine products, trying to bring them up to the
standard set by the posters. Particularly, there is empty space that could be filled up
more, adding more detail to bare patches and satisfying some of the concerns of those
who gave feedback.
Also, I would try and find any assets that disrupt each other and try to reorient them,
hopefully finding a more appropriate place for them if they clash against each other.