Final publication

The finished publication presented below ended up being a printed 8-page zine at smaller-than-A5 size. I found that this size was appropriate for the sizes of font inside the magazine, and that by adding two more pages than my original plan, I could give the content some breathing room. The outcome was 10 hand-made published editions of "Character Magazine," each one a little smaller than A5 to give the publication a unique quality, with the pages stapled together for ease of access.

(LEFT) Back cover, (RIGHT) Front cover

The covers of my magazine are the best-looking and most professional of the publication (as they should be), although they are the part that possibly had the least amount of changes. From the flat plan, I knew that I wanted something like the final front cover shown here, but I believe I have achieved an even better outcome than I expected. The original back cover was intended to be blank until I decided to use a different version of the front cover illustration to fill the white space. This ultimately provides the right balance of negative space that these covers need.

(LEFT) Page 2, (RIGHT) Page 7

One of the pages I added was a simple, yet effective details page that you would normally see near the front of a print publication. By using a professional format, I managed to provide useful information as well as incorporate my name into the zine in an unobstructed way. The last content page is the interview with Marcus Lehto - I have gone into detail on the changes I made to the original and why on a seperate blog post, but it is important to say that the text is still readable in the zine's final size.

(LEFT) Page 6, (RIGHT) Page 3

The sixth page presents an article detailing the history of the Master Chief in videogame culture, and the origins and development of the character's design. This page uses a host of images from the games and is reminiscent of the format an article would use in a modern gaming magazine. By marrying the text and images in this way, I have shown the importance of the character, as well as broken up what would be a lot of writing for the average reader. The third page is the last of the new additions and is a 'contents' page of sorts, that gives a teaser of what to expect from each section of the magazine. The page uses images from the corresponding sections to also give a flavour of what to expect in each.

(LEFT) Page 4, (RIGHT) Page 5

The final pages shown here are a double-page spread of the first section of content. At the centre of the zine, this article becomes the core of the entire publication, and is allowed to spread out across more than one page. This is beneficial to showing more stages in the development of one of my own characters. The presentation and spacing of information on these two pages gives a simplistic and modern feel to the publication that is carried throughout.

The contemporary aesthetic that I have gone for with this magazine helps it to appeal to a large audience of creatives and non-creatives. While "Character Magazine" was originally intended as a publication by artists, for artists, the development of the publication has helped me to realise the potential it has on educating and inspiring people who are new to the concept of character design. Through this, I believe the zine was a successful attempt at producing a professional print product.