fmp evaluation

1. Evaluation
Kieran Johnson

2. Production Process Evaluation

3. Research
Strengths of my research:
• I researched a variety of different wrestling and football magazines, focusing on details
such as colour schemes, headlines, who was the main figure of the cover and
deducing who would be the most likely audience based on these factors. I felt that the
research done was to a good standard, making plenty of notes on each convention
that I came across, and making sure to apply it to my own work.
• Additionally I took a survey that received 21 responses and I analysed the
observations and patterns that I spotted from it, such as what age groups were
actually interested in magazines, and who was more likely to be intrigued by the cover
figure. I also took interviews with two people, asking them questions relating to the
topic of wrestling magazines specifically, but also how wrestling characters (the faces
and heels) would likely be portrayed in magazines. To their credit, their answers were
in great detail and help me observe even more of what the audience would expect
from a wrestling magazine.
Weaknesses of my research:
• Whilst I did plenty of research on magazine covers, I do think I could have done more
to research magazine insert pages, such as interview articles and merchandise pages,
and analyse the colour choices they make as well as the conventions they tend to
follow. I don’t think it was the end of the world as I did skim through a few examples
of feature interviews in some wrestling magazines, so I had a base idea of what to do,
but I feel it would have been a small bit better had I analysed them.

4. Planning
Strengths of my planning:
• I focused the majority of the pre-production detailing font styles and colour schemes,
looking up an assortment of colours and fonts that I felt would work very well for a
wrestling magazine, and as much detail as I possibly could into explaining why I had
made my final choices, which roughly came down to a choice of three. This section is
also where my photos of insert pages from magazines that I actually own have been
viewed in my project, where I look at the colour scheme and concluded that they all
seemed to have a fairly similar beigy-style colour palette.
• I found multiple wrestler portraits to use as examples for the style of portraits that I
wanted to produce for my photo shoot. These wrestler portraits tend to be used
everywhere for promoting matches or magazine appearances, so I felt that it would
make sense to create my own.
Weaknesses of my planning:
• I think there could have been more detail put into the flat plans in particular. They seem
to have been very brief and lack any sort of added information to it, and as a result may
have led to my plan for a merchandise page being abandoned and replaced for the
competition poster.
• My risk assessment was done late, and as a result with my USB stick corrupting and
because I decided to not back up the Photoshop files onto OneDrive, my base
Photoshop files for the project are forever gone, only the finished pieces are saved as
png files.

5. Time Management
Did I manage my time well?
• I feel like my time was very well managed, especially when compared to the time
management for my adventure project. I think what helped was the fact we were
actually working in college full time again, and as a result I felt like I was in the mood to
do the work given the working atmosphere that college presents. By comparison,
working at home for the prior project didn’t do me any favours as I had no desire to
work at home.
• I felt like my project was kept at a good pace throughout the time I had to work on it –
what helped most was that in my mind (and in the schedule I made on the proposal) I
had divided up the project into section of double page spreads over the course of four
weeks from the 13th of April, depending on the pages I was intent on making for the
magazine.
• What helped massively was that I got the photo shoot done early, on the 1st of April,
meaning that I had plenty of time to focus my attention towards the editing process of
my project.
What could I have done with more time on production?
• I did have an additional double page spread for a merchandise page filled with a variety
of wrestling T-shirts and action figures planned originally, however I was unable to get
the original plan onto the completed production with enough time. However I did settle
with making a competition poster for the back cover of the magazine instead, that
borrowed a few elements of my original plans for the merchandise page – such as the
fonts and general “old school wrestling poster” colour scheme and artistic style.

6. Technical Qualities – Front cover
Central image – This is a mid-
shot of the focus character for
the issue, Sebastian Blaze, who
takes the role of being the
featured interview in the issue.
The photo originally had a green
screen on the background,
which has been taken out for
editing and has resulted in the
character being central with a
transparent background.
Headline – The headline is a
staple for magazine covers.
They're mostly short,
snappy, and sometimes have a
pun to them, depending on
the magazine's tone. Given my
magazine was intended to be
of a serious tone, I decided
the headline should match
that intention. In the end, the
headline amounted to the
name of the cover figure,
attempting to symbolise that
he is the main focus of the
issue.
Masthead - The magazine's masthead is an important feature for a magazine, as it
establishes the identity that the magazine is set out to present towards its
audience. The name "Off The Script" implies to the audience that the producers
intend to get unscripted (and out of kayfabe) interviews in an attempt to get an
in-the-know insight first hand from the people involved within wrestling itself.
Footer - Footers tend to
highlight more articles and
names that feature in the issue
without giving too much away. I
decided to insert some
mainstream wrestling names in
this section to make up for the
relatively unknown wrestler
being the cover star.
A major influence that I took on board for this
magazine cover was the PWI 2020 year-end special,
featuring Jon Moxley with his AEW Championship
belt. Here you can see the mid-shot of Moxley being
the central image of the magazine being positioned
on the right hand side, with the headline on the left in
a bold-ish style font. The headline of "Jon Moxley
is #1" is short, snappy and straight to the point as to
the magazine's content, with the PWI 500 section
being the drawing factor towards buying it.
Cover lines - They
usually detail what to
expect from the
headline article, in this
case that is what I did.
They're easy to notice,
organised well in a
bullet point format,
and simply detail what
is to come from the
headline interview.

7. Technical Qualities – Back cover
Product placement – Competition posters often use the prizes as the focal point of their
poster, or at the least it’s made to be very obvious by its placement on the poster. The real one
in the bottom right corner of the page actually doesn’t feature a prize product as its main
image, but rather examples of quilt designs that have been sent in before in previous
competitions, as the prize for it is a voucher. By comparison, mine has the ”Big Gold” World
Heavyweight Championship at the top just underneath the heading, as well as an assortment
of t-shirts underneath as second prizes. I chose this method as it seems to be a standard way
to catch the audience’s interest towards, but also contextually, because the “Big Gold” is one
of the most beloved wrestling belts in history, so there is a high chance that the audience will
want a chance at winning the prize in a competition instead of simply buying it for a large
price.
Copy arrangement – Given the placement of the products being on the right hand side of
the page, the copy going onto the left was a no-brainer. I decided to start off with a set-up
paragraph, detailing information about the “Big Gold” belt such as who makes the replicas
[Fandu Belts] and where it was used. The entry details paragraph was organized into a
step-by-step list as they’re generally easy for readers to understand and I felt that it suited
for this type of text, and was easy to create as a result. The only difficulty with it oddly
enough was whether to make it a coupon competition or an online one, in the end I chose
to direct the audience to a website to complete the competition, which may limit
audience participation, particularly those older audience members, who may not have the
access to the internet, however should surely maximize the 16-30 audience group. There
are some little information details dotted in the four corners outside of the belt, I
originally only wanted to include the “Worth £300” detail, but I feel that the addition of
the other splashed copy does well to not only fill the page up a bit further, but also brings
more eyes towards the competition.

8. Technical Qualities – Interview pages
Top corner:
Left page arrangement – The left hand page is filled by a portrait of the
figure, which is a general convention of magazine article, often done as a
means to introduce the person that the article is about, as is the case in
this instance. Underneath the face is a pull quote taken from the article
itself, that I decided was good enough to be highlighted on its own. There
is also at the footer of the portrait image as well, mainly just there to
inform the unknowing audience as to who the person actually is, as well
as detailing what he’s doing at the moment.
Right page arrangement – The copy is organised into columns of 3, which
is another general convention that magazines tend to follow. I believe that
it allows for simpler reading as the copy is well organised and only goes
part-way across the page. In addition to the article itself, there is a
headline at the top and a lead-in paragraph underneath that to engage
the audience into the
interview.
Bottom corner:
Left page arrangement – I decided to reverse the arrangement I originally
made from the first page. In terms of copy arrangements, it is is almost
identical, only leaving a space in the top right hand corner instead for the
photo.
Right page arrangement – A mid shot is accompanied by three real life
photos of actual wrestling matches, as part of a top three favourite
matches list, featuring a small explanation from the character. This was
done for more interaction between the character and their audience, and
to perhaps create more conversation.

9. Technical Qualities – Tour poster
Copy positioning – Perhaps the most important thing for a tour poster is to ensure that the copy is placed in a spacious
area and that there is all the major pieces of information clearly shown on it. The tour dates are easily visible on the right
hand side along with the ticket prices and social media pages underneath. This is a general trend of tour poster, as can be
seen in the Alter Bridge tour poster in the bottom corner, where the dates are clearly shown on the right hand side of the
page, along with information
such as a website and guest
bands who joined them.
The photo – The photo used is
a close up, because it does
well to give a clear indication
as to who the poster is
dedicated towards. It’s concise
and it works well in doing so as
the audience get to become
familiar with the figure in the
photo. Similarly, the album
artwork of “The Last Hero” by
Alter Bridge appears as an
iconograph that is the
spearheading image for their
tour poster. It’s clear and easy
for the audience to keep in
their mind in preparation for
the tour, or if they just want to
go and buy the album in a
shop.
Structure of the paper tear - The idea of
the paper tear effect is to create a half
and half image using two different filters.
It is simple, but they can do a lot to create
a distorted character. In most cases, the
paper tear will most likely appear as the
top layer of the photo, with the filters
being produced underneath.
A big flaw - During the editing,
I noticed that the shoulder had
been cropped out earlier on.
This was around the time I had
changed the poster from
portrait to landscape.
Therefore I had to create
another paper tear for the
right hand side of the page
that hides the fact I forgot to
keep the shoulder. I'd like to
consider it to be good
improvisation that has kept
the result looking professional.

10. Aesthetic Qualities
Consistent colour scheme – I made it clear from the my
planning that I wanted to apply a red and black colour scheme
throughout the magazine as I felt that the connotations of
them colours would suit the character I wanted to portray,
aided by the defiant facial expressions in the photos. The red
and black colour scheme has been used as a gradient pattern in
three different ways, a radial pattern with red in the centre
turning black outwards (on the left), red on the left turning
black going right (down below), and black on the left turning
red going right (on the right). The overall colour scheme is quite
limited as I didn’t want the products to become oversaturated
by too many wild colours, however I do think the shades of
dark blue contrast well with the red and black gradients.
Shadows – In keeping with the colour
scheme, I applied a drop shadow effect
to each of the shots of the figure in
order to create an illusion that there is
light shining towards him. In all
honesty I don’t think it is perfect,
especially for the “Highlight Three”
page as the shadow blends in too well
with the black half of the gradient,
however I am impressed with how
seamless the shadow appears on the
front cover and on the front cover.
Fonts – I originally chose to use the Lemon Milk
font on its own for the masthead, however with
some experimentation, I though the word “Script”
looked good in a separate font that looked as if it
was handwritten or scratched on. The font I ended
up choosing for this was Road Rage, which is also
used for the word “natural” in the caption on the
close up image (next to this text). This example is a
bit strange, I felt that the continuous use of the
Road Rage font throughout the magazine was
done to instill the masthead’s design to appear
that the audience wouldn’t forget it.

11. Aesthetic Qualities
Premise – The original idea I had was to make a page
primarily dedicated to merchandise, however because I
still needed something to fill for the back cover, I decided
to create a competition poster for the opportunity to win a
replica championship belt that is briefly mentioned in the
front cover. This decision was reached because I was aware
that most sports magazines tend to have an
advertisements or a poster of some form, and I believed
this idea was capable of taking some of the original ideas I
had for the merchandise page.
Colour scheme – I wanted to base this poster off of
traditional wrestling posters from the 1970s and 80s (see
the Hogan vs Piper poster in the bottom right corner).
Mostly similar is the colour scheme, the dominant colour is
an off-yellow, almost pale-ish colour and the red is used for
the colour of the copy used in the poster. The only
difference between the two in terms of artistic styles is the
championship belts and the t-shirts are in full colour,
whereas the objects in the real poster (the mid shot
renders of Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper) are faded out.
Font choices – The font I choice to use for the heading of
the poster had to have a sense of being “retro”, which led
me to York Whiteletter, which is also used for the sub-
heading, albeit with the choice of border that comes with
selecting the font. The heading had to be extravagant and
catch the audience’s eye, whilst the sub-heading is simply
there to introduce an informative paragraph.
If I was thinking of a way to enhance it from what it is now, I
would have liked to try and give it an aged aesthetic style,
give the poster some creases from being folded in half, and
some tears around the edges – like the scan of the Hogan vs
Piper poster has. It would be purely for authenticity
purposes, however I believe it would have been a good
showcase of my skills with photoshop. Another things that
could have been altered is the opacity of the objects (the belt
and the t-shirts), which is again for pure authentic reasons for
being a call-back to old-school wrestling posters, and whilst I
don’t think the full opacity damages the quality of the poster,
it is something I could have though about more.

12. Aesthetic Qualities
Basic colour scheme – From what I found out of magazine
interviews and article pages, article pages often aren’t
fully white and are in fact more of an off-white in a shade
of another colour. In this case it is an off-white or a red-ish
grey colour for the background. I chose the red so that it
would strike a slight resemblance to the red and black
background that has been a consistent fixture throughout
my magazine. On its own, it might actually seem to be
more like a newspaper article rather than a magazine
article, however when the double page spreads, they do
appear to be well fit in with the rest of the magazine, and I
am proud of them.
Font choices – Revanswas my font choice for the main article copy font, as it seemed to look like a good, generic and
informative serif font that I considered to be suitable for the copy of the interview. In addition to that, there is the
Blacklisted font that is used for the article heading “Lighting the Fire”. It is yet another distorted font style along
with Dolphin With a Massive Shotgun that I felt looked very good in accordance with its purpose. It can also be
spotted as the font for the headline shown on the very front cover of the magazine.
Little photos in the corners – Magazine articles do tend to have paragraphs split up by a small photo that usually
appear in corners of the pages in this case. These photos also feature a black and white radial gradient as its
background, pretty much to separate them from the other and bigger photos that are placed on the front cover and
next to the interview pages. Out of everything, I believe these are the weakest parts of the project as I don’t think
they were executed as well as they possibly could have, especially the one in the top corner on the second half of the
interview. The drop shadows aren’t that great and they could have blended to the background much better.

13. Aesthetic Qualities
The paper tear – I have always loved the paper tear design idea
as I feel it is a unique way of exploring creativity with modern
digital technology, and the execution of my Meet and Greet Tour
poster is no exception of this. I like that it splits up into two
types of backgrounds and filters used for the character on the
left, and also splits again to show the tour dates with the rusty
background. An example to compare with appears underneath
the tour poster (it is another piece of work produced by myself
that I have also shown in my pre-production PowerPoint). Whilst
I feel the effects and filters that I used for the poster are
structured and applied with a purpose to highlight the character
of Sebastian Blaze, I think the one below appears to be a bit
more random with its choice of effects used, and hasn’t put as
much thought into it, it isn’t that obvious to detect an identity
with the effect choices.
Copy choices – I believe this is the most creative my choice of copy was throughout the entire
project. The fonts I used for the ”Meet and Greet Tour” heading and “May 2021” subheading
was called Dolphin With A Massive Shotgun, which appears as a distorted choice of font
that I thought was suitable for the background I had. Additionally, I chose to use the Dissolved
blending option and decreased the opacity down slightly to create an illusion that the rusted
background was causing damage to the text itself. I also used the Breaking Bad TV show font
for the name of Sebastian Blaze, because I thought that the poster had a vibe that was
familiar to the show’s opening titles, only that it uses yellow instead of green and once again
the copy is partly dissolved. This is considered to be a spoof, or a parody, and with the
wrestling context spoofs towards TV and films are actually fairly common.
However, there is one fairly huge setback with the poster, it suggests that I have no left
shoulder, which is only the case because I cropped it out before I had the idea of making the
poster landscape.

14. Audience Appeal
• The audience I was aiming to target for was wrestling fans who were around
the 14-30 age group and of any gender.
• There’s multiple attempts to create an interpersonal relationship between the
reader and Sebastian Blaze. On both of the interview pages, he is using direct
address towards the audience, with a facial expression of anger being
displayed. This non-verbal communication is trying to display the confidence
of him being in character, as if he is acting in front of an audience.
Contrastingly, the topic of conversation being out of kayfabe (not in character)
is used not only to go along with the title of the magazine (“Off the Script”
implying that its articles go deeper beyond the performance aspect of
wrestling), but also to try and get the audience to respect Blaze for his love of
wrestling history itself. He himself is a fan, making him not much different to
the audience.
• The competition splash, competition poster, and tour poster are all used to
help the audience interact with the magazine, the institution, and the
wrestling industry itself. There’s a nod to the history with the mention of the
“Big Gold” belt, as well as an urge to interact with those involved in wrestling,
as the tour poster aims to do.

15. Peer
Feedback

16. Feedback 1
• What did you like about the product?
– The final product is of a high quality and has a lot
of detail in order to make it look more
professional.
• What improvements could have been made to
the product?
– The smaller photos in the interview pages look
over-exposed and could maybe be redone.

17. Feedback 2
• What did you like about the product?
– The project is visually impressive
– The format of the interview is well-organised
• What improvements could have been made to
the product?
– Some text alignment on the competition poster
could have been better
– The small photo in the corner of the interview
page looks a bit too exposed and bright

18. Feedback 3
• What did you like about the product?
– The range and overall quality of each pages layout,
and the photoshoot is really good.
– The intertextuality of the Breaking Bad link, the
Sharingan in his eye allows you to get to know the
wrestler’s character.
• What improvements could have been made to
the product?
– The image on the top right corner of the interview
page – the exposure seems quite off and overly white.
– The boxes with the favourite matches could maybe
have been all set to one size, just so it looks a little
neater on the page.

19. Peer Feedback Summary
• What do you agree with from your peer
feedback?
– I do feel that the small photos that are on the article
pages are the weakest part of my project, I think the
main issue is with the lighting and the drop shadow.
• What do you disagree with from your peer
feedback?
– Whilst I do think the point about the images of the
favourite real life matches being one size is valid, I do
think that the way it is organised already is good
enough already in my opinion.

20. Peer Feedback Summary
• What changes would you make to your
product based upon your feedback and why?
– I’d definitely change the small photos on the
article pages in some way. Whether it be by giving
them a different background, or by making the
lighting appear better than it was before, I would
most importantly change that because they are
the weakest part of the entire project in my
opinion.