Audience & Purpose

Patrycja Reimus / / Brief 3

    The purpose of my game is to entertain and provide a sense of escapism from the real world for the player and provide an immersive experience within the world the game is set in. Below is an extract from my report:

    ‘My target demographic are adults aged 18+ due to the controversial, graphic and possibly offensive content of the game. Even though I want to keep my audience broad I’m also going to target a more specific audience of horror fans. The game will attract my target audience through the use of horror imagery and narrative based around demonic possession, exorcism and morbid medical practices. The technology used to develop the game will make it as cinematic and immersive as possible which will also attract advanced gamers. An elaborate advertising strategy before and during the game’s release will also play a big part in attracting said audiences […]’ (Reimus, 2015, 4)

Bibliography:

Reimus, P. (2015) Create a written  proposal for a single media product or service.  The proposal should consider such factors as [but not limited to] industry and societal trends, economic factors and skills/materials outsourcing.  As with all questions on the brief, you must include academic resources and referencing within your response.  This should take the form of a formal report adhering to the guidelines given from tutors and class literature. Student. University of Lincoln.

The Product

Patrycja Reimus / / Brief 3

I first started developing the idea for Bloodletting when I was writing my report for one of my other modules. Below is a part of this report explaining the game:

    ‘The product I’m developing is a video game called Bloodletting. It is build around the concept of exorcism and the exploration of a society it is set it through the eyes of a female protagonist. One of the main themes the game delves into is addiction and the problem of demon infected blood being sold on the black market.

    Bloodletting was inspired by the notion of barbers being blood-letters during the Medieval period. They would drain people of their blood because it was thought that infected blood was a cause for most diseases. (Fitzharris, 2013) I wanted to incorporate this concept into the way exorcisms are carried out in the game. The blood-letting barbers were also the influence for the characters of the three barbers that the main protagonist comes across in the game.

    The protagonist is a 24 year old female with an infected demon blood problem. Because of her ‘low life/drifter’ status she is captured by a demonic sect obsessed with summoning one of the demonic Dukes of Hell. The protagonist is used as a vessel during the summoning ritual to briefly contain the demon’s spirit in. The ritual is interrupted half way though and the protagonist is left sharing her body with a weaken Duke of Hell’s spirit. The game explores protagonist’s reactions and responses to her surroundings by giving multiple options for the player to chose from in order to control the outcome of the game.’ (Reimus, 2015, 3-4)

Inspiration for the game
Some of the inspirations for the game

    I want to visualize this idea and this is what I’m dedicating brief 3 to. I’m really hoping it will turn out as well as I have imagined it so far.

Bibliography:

Reimus, P. (2015) Create a written  proposal for a single media product or service.  The proposal should consider such factors as [but not limited to] industry and societal trends, economic factors and skills/materials outsourcing.  As with all questions on the brief, you must include academic resources and referencing within your response.  This should take the form of a formal report adhering to the guidelines given from tutors and class literature. Student. University of Lincoln.

Evaluation

Patrycja Reimus / / Brief 1, Brief 2

Brief 1: Typography

    The underlying themes of my project were texture and ornament. Few weeks into the project I realized that I’ve already established myself within the horror genre and so I deiced to pursue this theme as well as the already mentioned texture and ornament. I developed two ideas. One focused on ornament and was produced using calligraphy techniques and the other focused on texture and was a collage. Both of these were inspired by various horror texts such as the TV series Hannibal which made me think about how bodies can be used to form letters. I called the first idea Dismembered Letters and the other Anatomy Collage. Dismembered Letters’s design was heavily inspired by Hammer Horror Film’s poster design for Countess Dracula. It inspired me to incorporate the lettering into images. Anatomy Collage was more heavily influenced by the idea of rearranging dismembered letters and this is why I decided to make the letters in a form of a collage. Here is a link to my Ideas post: https://patrycjareimusdesign.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2015/11/15/ideas-2/. In the end I decided to further develop the Anatomy Collage because the idea of using old anatomy sketches in combination with some modern artwork appealed to me. After I made my collages I decided to manipulate my letter forms in Photoshop. Some of the images I printed out where pixelated. I added a texture in Photoshop in order to hide the pixelations and to reinforce the fact that this project was influenced by texture. I feel that my typeface is reflecting all of the themes because it has both texture made by hand during the collage process and texture added digitally. The horror element is reflected through the use of naked bodies which were rearranged into letters. During the development stages I realized that the background look quite amateurish which is precisely why I decided to get rid of it. Instead I decided to present my letter forms on a plain white background which in my opinion looked far more professional and, unlike the highly cluttered background, allows the letters to be appreciated indepth. This letter form design was created with a specific audience in mind, these would be psychology/horror fans, and I think it would appeal to them due to it’s captivating details. The images used for the collages were rigorously selected to reflect a form of sophisticated body horror which when combined together create thought provoking collages. This allows the audience to look closely and explore different elements of the letter form design. Because of the low readability of my letter form it’s most appropriate use would be as a modern drop cap or for a cover of a magazine, comic etc. Here is a link to my Audience & Purpose post: https://patrycjareimusdesign.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2015/11/10/audience-purpose/ . I might sound a bit big headed, however I honestly wouldn’t change anything about my final design. I think it turned out to be an elaborated design made to a professional standard. I do however wish that I cold have presented my letters in a better mock up or perhaps a magazine which I designed myself so that they could be fully appreciated. If I had more time I would’ve also made the whole alphabet which I regret that I couldn’t do.

Bb
Bb

Brief 2: Multi Format Data Visualisation

I started off this brief by researching Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity since this is what the brief was expecting of us, or what I though it did. However I later on found out that we were aloud to do pretty much whatever we wanted so long as it was to do with Albert Einstein. This is where I decided to conduct more research into Einstein’s life. I found out that after his death the pathologist who was responsible for his autopsy stole his brain in order to conduct research. This story intrigued me and actually got me excited about this project because it was creepy and weird, areas which I already established myself within as a designer. Another part of my research which heavily influenced the development of my infographics was movement. Before I started researching infographic I had no idea what they were or the creative ways in which they can be designed in. I’m not only talking about static images providing the viewer with information about a certain topic. I found out that infographics have different sub-genres such as animated infographics and responsive infographics. These two aspects of infographic type is what inspired me to create my final app and website designs. My app was supposed to be an animated infographic, the website a responsive infographic and the poster a static A4 print. Transmedia was another intriguing form of spreading information. It dictates that different types of media add more information to the overall story being told. In this design’s case the A4 poster infographic is the first media text which promotes my project and introduces the audience to the story of Einstein’s brain. It achieved it by providing some basic information to intrigue the audience and the website’s address. The app is the next stop on the journey. It’s interactive and animated to grasp younger audience’s attention. Finally the website provides the most information about Einstein’s brain almost like a huge responsive database. The actual appearance of these was inspired by a few websites and apps I researched. I wanted a clean and uniformed look in order to bring some credibility to my project which I ended up naming THE BRAIN. The website operates by either searching something about the brain or clicking on a part of the brain which would light up, the rest of the brain will go lighter and blurry to further separate that section of the brain. At that point a box with information would appear. The A4 poster, the app and the website were design with a 16+ aged audience in mind which is why they’re so simplistic; to make them easy to navigate. Here is a link to my Audience & Purpose post:

https://patrycjareimusdesign.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2015/12/13/audience-purpose-2/.

Before this year I never used InDesign or Illustrator before nor worked with mock-ups this is why this project proved very difficult. In the end however I manged to create a basic and minimalist design which I am very proud of. Obviously the design of the infographic can be improved and I think in the future after gaining more skills with working with the software I could create something of a high professional standard.

Practical application 1
My final designs in a mock-up