Blog 20: Exit Interview

1. What is your essential question and among your answers, which one is your best?

• What is most important in creating a graphic design that will persuade someone to purchase a game?
• Target audiences are an important factor to consider
• How it is packaged for the target audience can affect one's decision.
• A reboot of a classic game can attract veterans and new players alike
• The first answer about target audiences is my best answer
• my mentor, interviewees, and many other articles in my research have emphasized the importance of target audiences. Although reboots and packaging are also important, they still build on top of having the target audience in mind. Without sufficient research on the target audience, creating a graphic design can be like taking a shot in the dark.
• According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), between 2012 and 2013, the male population in America has increased from 53% to 55%. The female gamer populations has decreased from 47% to 45%. This data can help explain why games are often designed for males rather than females. Finding trends like these helps game companies sell games more easily than if they were to design a game without the customer in mind.

2. What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

• Ever since I took up graphic design for my senior topic, I always had a feeling that target audiences would be involved in my best answer. My first mentor, Daryl Villanueva, had hammered the idea of target markets into my head. He almost always mentioned them in the things we talked about during my Summer Mentorship. My current mentor also put great emphasis on target audiences during my time under his wing, taking lots of time and effort to carry this point across. Even my third interviewee, Peter Mendoza, had expressed the same level of priority about target audiences. Even though none of them have met before, I am almost certain that they would agree with each other and answer my essential question by saying that target audiences require a great deal of attention.

3.What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

• In the summer, I started my Summer Mentorship by joining my first mentor, Daryl Villanueva. I thought he was a good mentor and he knew what he was doing. However, there was a slight complication: he lived in Dubai at the time, so it was difficult to set a schedule. Eventually, I had to find a new mentor, who is now my current mentor, Inaki Serrano.

4.What are the two most significant sources you used to answer essential question and why?

• My mentorship experience was definitely helpful, as it helped me find answers through work and real-life examples. Going to the store to analyze game packages especially helped me find answers. We mostly went there to find my second and third answers
• The website creativebloq.com helped me further my research, build my foundation, and taught me a few tips and tricks for design, Photoshop, and Illustrator. In fact, the site was so helpful, a bulk of the articles in my research can be found there (see my Working Bibliography on the side of my blog if you would like to take a look).