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1. Factual:
Idea Development and Planning
Kieran Johnson

2. Task 2: Idea Development and Planning U9 2.1
You could create a mood board of images related to your product. They could be inspirational or visually interesting.
Analyse what you have gathered.
Decide on content and think about how you will structure your piece – consider the conventions of your chosen
style/genre, think about the best methods to appeal to your audience.
Finally work out a production schedule for the project. Once you have a final proposal, begin to plan how you intend to
realise your project and what you will need to create/collect.
Planning will vary depending on if you are doing a web series, podcast or a fanzine.
Web-series: A script, storyboard, organisational docs and clearance forms for your contributors/sources.
Fanzine: Content outline, visual style, pagination, organisational documents.
Podcast: Script, organisational docs, clearance forms for your contributors/sources.

3. Mood board (or other idea development work):
• Looking at gaming magazines are useful in the
sense of understanding that they tend to reach
into different and more niche genres of the
gaming spectrum itself – some dedicate
themselves towards a specific
console/manufacturer, such as the Xbox, whilst
others base their content more towards older
video games, like Retro Gamer. There are an
abundant of magazines that are more general
though.
• Regarding fanzines more specifically, they each
take multiple different approaches as to how
their front covers are produced. Most of the
fanzines that I have seen choose to create their
own art that represent what the issue’s main
article is about – some of it is hand-drawn, like
the 69-Bit front cover (on the left, middle row),
whilst others tend to use more computer-
generated artwork, such as the 2020/21 edition
of United We Stand (bottom row on the left).

4. Questions:
For TGG:
• When did you start getting into video games? Was there a specific video game that got you into it? Or something else that had you
influenced?
• How highly do you consider [x game here] amongst your all-time favourite games?
• Your YouTube channel has seen you gain an affinity to the WWE game series, and as such has gained an incredible soar in
popularity. When you think about how you started on YouTube, how would you say your approach to content creation has
changed?
• Is there one particular wrestling game that you hold in higher regard compared to others? Likewise, are there any in a lower regard
than others? Why are these so?
• Aside from wrestling games, what other game series’ do you intend to showcase on your channel? What do you plan on doing for
the future of your channel?
• How do you see the gaming industry now, compared to how it was when you were first introduced to gaming?
For questionnaire:
• Roughly, how often do you spend on gaming per week?
• What genre of video games would you say you’re most interested in?
• How long would you say you have been playing video games?
• What consoles do you own?
• What handhelds do you own?
• Do you play games on PC?

5. Content:
• 12 pages, front and back covers + 5 double page spreads
• Interview article with a YouTuber, ThisGenGaming (200k subscribers, 130m views) – relevant with wrestling games, some open
world games, and spoken to him plenty of times before. Hopefully familiar with some readers.
• Main article page discussing how the gaming industry is today compared to what it used to be – bring a point that gaming consoles
were once solely about just the video games that were on them, but now over time, with so many beloved series no longer active,
games consoles are now so much more. The likes of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are essentially supercomputers, capable of
streaming games online, recording gameplay on its own, download and run TV apps like YouTube and Netflix, etc. It’s also important
to acknowledge that there has been a steep rise in online multiplayer gaming, with certain games choosing to take themselves
down the route of a battle royale gimmick, where the game continues until there is one player left standing.
• I’d also like to display some form of information regarding people’s preferences towards how they play video games and why they
do so – to make it authentic, I will be creating a questionnaire on this matter and hopefully be getting enough results to form
numerous patterns that suggest a particular statement is true. The main piece of information I intend to gather comes in the form
of whether people prefer playing games on consoles themselves, or on PCs, seeing if I can detect an age range on it, and possibly
gather certain people’s reasonings for this being the case.
• Review page of older games – this will be my attempt at trying to introduce the younger readership to more retro games they
potentially missed out on. Otherwise, this could be a nice little throwback section for those who are familiar with the older games.
• Throughout the magazine, I intend on making the pages appear colourful and creatively done, to make it look as original as
possible. A particular art style will be thought through for the front cover in particular, but most of the fanzine’s screenshots will
look to appear as authentic as possible, so as not to give away much misleading, or false information to the reader. The review
articles will be a more opinionated piece, but written by myself, as a person who truly cares about video gaming and the games
themselves.

6. Planning: Colour schemes
Colour hexes:
E48596 – Shimmering Blush
9AAAE5 – Maximum Blue Purple
D8C988 – Flax
F3AA55 – Rajah
E45D21 – Flame
Colour hexes:
F2E7C8 – Champagne
B2C38C – Olivine
87B4D7 – Aero
0528FE – Blue
323E6E – Dark Cornflower Blue
This colour palette follows similar to the colour scheme for the video game, Sonic Heroes
– which appears in the concept as the feature review among the retro reviews. The
gradient overlay of the background use pale-ish shades of red, blue, and yellow – the
three primary colours that represent each of the heroes – to differentiate themselves
from the fuller, more solid looking variants seen on the game’s box art (on the left page
of the double spread). In addition to these, there’s also shades of orange on the right
side of the double page spread, notably from the box arts of Doom and Crash Bandicoot.
Ultimately these 5 colours are what dominate the spread’s colour scheme.
The colour palette for the second concept features a
dominance of colder colours, notably the different
shades of blue that appear on the background, the TGG
logo, and the WWE 2K22 screenshot. Aside from those,
The use of the champagne and olivine in the gradient overlay helps to give the
background a bit more of a natural look and feel to it – this is mostly based on the
colours used in the screenshot of Battlefield 2042 that is blended in with the
background. Once again, the colours of the gradient overlay are of a more pale-ish
shade, which in turn helps the photos
that feature more solid and complete
colour pop out a bit more.

7. Planning: Font choices and ideas ABC/abc
VCR OSD Mono
ABC/abc
GameCuben
ABC/abc
Zrnic
ABC
NiseSegaSonic
abc
Ethnocentric Rg
abc
EA Sans Curves Regular
Fonts in use: VCR OSC Mono
Fonts in use: Ethnocentric Rg
The majority of fonts that I have in mind to use for this
project are based on what are used in video games and for
video game consoles, mainly because this is a gaming fanzine,
and other gaming zines have previously followed this kind of
idea with their font choices, so it isn’t exactly uncommon. The
first font chosen actually isn’t taken directly from a specific
video game or games consoles, but VCR OSD Mono was
mostly chosen given its pixelated texture fits within the
context of retro video games, and would therefore be a good
idea to use for the retro reviews page concept, therefore this
choice is pretty much final even at this point in the of the
planning phase, simply due to how well it fits for what I want
to use it for.
The rest of the fonts listed on this page are all taken from video
games and games consoles. GameCuben is taken from its
namesake, the Nintendo GameCube, which itself presents similarities to the Ethnocentric Rg
font – besides GameCuben being sans serif and Ethnocentric having a bit more serif.
Ethnocentric is taken from the video game Team Sonic Racing, and is the other font that I have
used as the heading font for my concept pages , it wasn’t as big as GameCuben, therefore I
managed to fit all the copy onto the top row of the left page. Other fonts included in the list are
Zrnic (from the PlayStation font), NiseSegaSonic (used for Sonic The Hedgehog), and EA Sans
Curves Regular (used for EA Sports FIFA games).

8. Planning: Page layouts
– front cover
MASTHEAD
Main image:
Preferably done in
an artistic manner
to make it appear
as if it has been
drawn on – a general
convention for
fanzines
Cover
lines
Will delve into
the issue’s main
topics of conversation,
giving a preview of
what will appear
Footer
Will likely contain features to
further draw audience into
buying it, as well as issue number,
date, and barcode
Could be a collage of
selected video game
characters, all in a CAD
drawn style of art
Uses Zrnic font style,
featuring a strapline
above it

9. Planning: Page layouts
– inside pages (based off of the concepts)
Common features:
1Headline
2Paragraphs worth of
information
3Screenshots/photos
4Gradient overlays
“Is the gaming industry actually evolving?”
- Poses a question to the audience, the page of
which will answer with graphs and noticeable
patterns.
- Interview with YouTuber ThisGenGaming for his
thoughts over the gaming industry.
“Retro reviews”
- Aims to recommend older games to a potentially
young audience, also gives the producer’s (myself)
thoughts on them.
- Also intend to find some parallel with another,
more recent game similar to them.

10. Planning: Risk Assessment
Risk Solution
Trip hazards Ensure the floor within the working area is a
clear as possible.
Issue regarding water nearby the equipment Ensure that the equipment is kept well away
from the water, especially electronics.
Work gets lost on USB/Drive Ensure that there is a back-up save stored
somewhere.

11. Production Schedule:
Week 1:
• Produce photos, draft articles, complete and share questionnaire, and interview, begin production on front and back covers
Week 2:
• Finish writing articles, Begin inside pages
Week 3:
• Continue with the inside pages, finishing some
Week 4:
• Fine-tuning the completed product, finishing off unfinished pieces