How'd it go?

The turnout was pretty good, and I talked to some parents about my work and the theme I had gone with. My little sister and parents came, and she took advantage of the cosy area I had made, from blankets and cushions. 

Last Tuesday, we had our show.

The day before, I came in for final tweaks to my pieces and to paint the actual boards white. It all turned out pretty good, and the next day I mounted my work onto card to make it look more professional. I brought my own family photos and bought some 'refrigerator letters' to create my theme. I also printed out 10 business cards to give out during the show.


That lasted for about an hour, and then it was time for the films, and finally a speech that ended our show and the two years on the course. Sort of.

Overall, I think it went well. People were interested and engaged with the boards, and even asking questions. I liked how my theme was also different, and not entirely uniform. Though, because my book wasn't on the board it did seem a little random. But I was there to hand out the books to explain it for anyone.

I think if I could go back and do something else, it would be to professionally print the business cards not mount them onto card. I was rushing so they weren't my best work, and they felt too thick, too. They weren't flexible and ways to fit in your pocket like other cards. I also slightly wish that during the year I had done some more work, or kept trying at unfinished ideas. I wanted a bit more on my board, in the end. For instance, my handmade book would've been really interesting and different to have there.

But, like I said, I'm happy with how it turned out.

My End of Year Show

The next task is to present our work in a show. We can do this however we want, but we have a wooden board, an iMac and a desk to work with.

The first thing that came to mind was thinking of a design or theme for the boards. We all decided to do separate themes, so we can get creative and show off our individuality to possible future employers. 

My first initial idea, which I have previously blogged here, was the have a black board with holes cut into it. I would put lights behind the holes so they all light up, and stand out to possible future employers. 

However, after creating a children's book for my FMP, that has changed. I wanted my board to link to my FMP, so I'm creating a 'children's corner'. I'll keep my board white, add some shelves for my book, and hang my work around it, with family photos and hand drawn pictures. This is to create the look of a fridge where you hang everything. I'll put cushions and bean bags at the bottom so people can sit, view the board and read the book. 

Because of this, I have a few things to do: organise what I'm hanging up, paint the board if needed, add shelves to said board, and create a business card for people to take away. 

I have just over a week to complete this, and with my panner, it's completely possible. I am pushing it a little for time, but I just need my head down and keep my hopes up. Also stick to the planner.

Feedback For my FMP

I put up a questionnaire filled with a page of my book, and a couple of illustrations. I asked people for their first impressions, and any feedback. I got 30 responses (as of now), but they were varied with age and gender. (You can view the survey here.)

Ages of participants

The lack of features on my character came across as strange to some. I only showed one image of my character, so they couldn't see any development of the character, however. The eyes seemed strange to some people, but when I showed two children the illustrations, they enjoyed the look of the character.

The style of the book was understood by most participants. Many said they liked the simplicity, and how it left the kids imagination to put the character in a scene. I was happy this came across well. Many were also intrigued by the first page, and wanted to know more.

One issue was the size of the font, and the type of font. Many said it perhaps wasn't too child-friendly as it wasn't the easiest font to read. The size was smaller than average children's books. I have reasons for this, which I've mentioned in other blogs, but it was interesting to see people pointing it out.

Three quarters of people agreed, or strongly agreed, with the moral. There were some that did disagree, but it was good too see the majority that agreed with the moral.

Would you buy this book for a child you know? Only 5 participants said no, which helps me the believe my FMP was successful, if 25/30 would buy the book after seeing one page. 20% would only buy it if it was cheap, and after asking what price would you buy it at?, the top responses were under £5 with 47%, and £5-£7 with 39%. One even said they'd pay £11-£15.

Finally, I asked them about the age range of the book. The most popular was 5-6 years old, but some people even said it was suitable for younger teens and adults. The second most popular was 7-8 years old, and the least was the adult age range. The most expected age ranges are very close to my target audience at 6-10 years old, so I'm happy that came through.

One issue with the questionnaire itself is that you can't view the whole book. I wanted to publish an interactive web version, but I didn't have the time. Because only one page is shown, you don't see the character or story develop, and one person even said they wouldn't buy it as they haven't seen the rest of the book.

Evaluation

My FMP is a children's book that is short and sweet, but also includes morals. The moral of this book is linked to my theme: change. I didn't want an opinionated moral, like 'eating meat is animal cruelty' which can lead to a debate. I wanted to have a moral which everyone can apply it to their lives. Change is something we all go through, from early age right to the end of our lives. I wanted to have a book that assures children that change will happen, but it's not always bad and it'll be okay. This is mostly because I went through a big change in my life, and I wanted my baby sister to have a good mindset when similar things happen to her. My book has a plot line that is simple: a girl meets a small creature, grows up with it, and then has to eventually say good-bye.

This book has it's weaknesses, of course. For instance, the illustrations are very simplistic, there's hardly any colour in the book, the text is a little too mature for kids, there's a lot of text, and the lack of features of my character can come across strange. The text is serif, which can make it a little complicated for younger kids to understand. This is why my audience changed slightly to older children, rather than younger. I think if I had more time I wold've committed more story to the book, so the text and font would've made more sense to the older target audience. However, I did show my little sister and her friend a version of my book, and they both really liked the character and the story. Her friend even said 'she looks like me'. I like the lack of features help a kid to relate to the character slightly.

This leads me to the strengths: the story is a life lesson, the style overall works together, the colours that are there work well, the layout fits well, the words are simple enough for children to understand, and the characters are good to show children. Though my book has it's set backs, it helps get the message across and is suitable still for children.

The main inspiration behind my theme was my personal experiences (like I mentioned), but I also had another inspiration: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This french author created the book 'The Little Prince'. that book was very much mine: full of morals, simple illustrations, simple characters and serif text. The main difference being the amount of words and pages. This book really helped me see how children do enjoy books with maturer text, and can understand morals in books, but the older children will enjoy it mostly.

At first, I was inspired by Shaun Tan - an author of a book full of moral, simple text and complicated artwork. I wanted more of a picture book, but, in production, I realised that wasn't my style at all. I was a writer, not an artist. I also received feedback and people even preferred The Little Prince's style over Tan's. So, this was a lot of experimentation on my part in the production bit - changing the style of illustrations, the size of text, the layout, etc. But the biggest change in my development is there change in style.

Despite the change in style, I had other changes in my development which shaped my project entirely:

- Story
I had changes in the length of my story. I had two versions: more detailed and then childish. Ultimately, none ended up in the book. I took the childish version, and added bits, and cut bits that wouldn't work with the page it was on.

- Pages
I also changed my book from a 12 page to 24. I did this by adding blank pages, so you weren't turning the page to the story straightaway, but I also added a dedication to my sister, as she was the main reason I had thought of the idea, and also a page on the moral of that story.

- Illustrations
I did make changes to the drawings through Photoshop, as I had issues with scaling and simple things that make the pages seem odd. Like the size of the creature, missing features, etc. I also made the resolution of the images higher, so the quality wouldn't be an issue.

I showed my finished book to a survey of people. There I got mixed responses - most still would buy it, sometimes at a much higher price at what I'd sell it for. Unfortunately, you can only see one page of the book, so a lot of the feedback was that they'd want to see more, but I saw that as a good thing. I also showed my sister and her friend, like I said, and they enjoyed it. A lot of the mother's in the playground were interested enough to want to buy one when they were all finished printing. It felt to get it printed, honestly.

Despite it being printed, it's not perfect, and I'd want to add more if I could. More artwork, more text, more of a story, but with the time I had I'm really happy with what I achieved. I think if there was more, the simpleness of it all would seem more intentional, and maybe even adults could enjoy the book, not just with their child.

My statement of intent is pretty much the project I have. I did everything I wanted to do, including the surveys and questionnaires. I wanted to do vlogs throughout, but these turned into screencasts to show my work better and give evidence. my target audience started off pretty vague, with the possibility of adults reading it, too. I don't think adults would as the plot line is for children, and there's much to be left to the imagination, which, naturally, kids are better at.

My pitch to the client about my project was very brief. I hadn't thought up of Ruri yet, or even what she'd look like, so I thin I was nervous about what I would say if they had asked a lot of questions. But I had a solid timeline and plan for my book, the story, and the illustrations. It was a clear presentation and a clear idea. It went a lot better than I expected, as all the questions I did have answers to. The feedback I got was about the timing of my project, and whether I'd keep to it. So I would, I updated my planner constantly with live links. They also commented on having a slightly more developed character, and so I made a slight 'backstory' for Ruri, and then started to sketch her. That really helped with my development with her character.

Next time, if I was making a book, I'd give myself more time, and pitching it I would have a solid idea on everything I needed: including character and my style.

My Project So Far (An Update)

More pages

My book has progressed in the past week entirely. It has gone from a textless book with randomly sized illustrations, to a story being told with words and also pictures.

Facing spine, rather than the edge

At first, the book was random. The words didn't quite match, and it did contradict itself. The illustrations weren't at a right scale and didn't help with the flow of the story. After getting some feedback from a teacher, I went back to the drawing board...literally. I developed little details on my illustrations, and then repositioned them in the book. For instance, I had the character on the spine of the book, facing out. Just moving this to the other side helped with the flow of the words on the page.

This is one spread

The story itself seemed strange. It started off simple and led into more and more words. One huge thing I did? I added four pages. These pages weren't full of text, but I added two pages after the cover, just with the title on. This is so you're not just jumping straight into the book. I also added another page so one of my illustrations stretches across the spread. This was a suggestion made to me to help with the emotion of that spread. Finally, I also added a page at the back to, again, concentrate on that one illustration. It, overall, is looking better, and I'm waiting for more feedback before it's sent off to print.

Experimenting

- styles (illustration from tan to prince)
- story (detailed to children's)

In the Easter holiday I had 'test shoots'. Really, that's a camera technique, but I still had to experiment with my project, though it was just on screen. I talk a lot about this on my progressive vlog.

One way I did this, was with my story. I wrote a story, page to page, and then adjusted it slightly for two versions. You had my detailed version with semi-colons and a bunch of fancy things, and then a simpler version - one that doesn't make a kid stop every 4 seconds asking 'mummy, what does that mean?'. Experimenting with the word count, and even the vocabulary of my book helped me decide how to layout the book.

This leads to my style. At first I was going with a Shaun Tan inspiration with hardly any words and mostly pictures. However, the more I drew and more I realised: I'm a writer. This led me to my next favourite children's book, The Little Prince. More text heavy, but still with illustrations, the french author wrote and illustrated his own book.

I messed about with the size of the letters and shapes, and got a layout in a 'Little Prince' style thta I made my own.

You can see more on my vlog.

How do YOU choose your children's books?

Recently, I conducted a survey online about people's favourite books and what they'd buy their children (or any child). I only posted this survey to parenting forums, and got 32 responses.

I firstly asked whether or not they had children, and this was the response. Well over three quarters either had children or were expecting, which was pretty predictable thinking about where I posted it.

The next question really shocked me. I asked what they look for when they buy a children's book (whether their own or someone else's), and expected to see a variety. However, 100% of responses ticked 'the story itself'. Artwork was also popular with 71.9% of people, and the least popular was the size of the letters, at 15.6%.  This told me that artwork was as important as I previously thought from my other research, but everyone also cared about the story - which makes sense it being a printed story.

This leads me to my next question where I asked, what's the most important factor of a book? No one at ALL chose the size of the letters. But, in fact, 68.8% of people find the story the most important factor of buying a children's book. This would led me to making certain adjustments to my book, like the quality of writing and the clarity of the story itself. I wanted adults to understand what was happening int he book, and for children's to be able to read it without confusion. A quarter of people found the artwork the most important, making it less of a priority to me, but a priority nonetheless.

I also put up two illustrations: one of The Little Prince, and one of The Red Tree. I asked people to decide what artwork they thought was best. The majority liked The Little Prince (62.5%), for reasons such as 'It's a bit more simple for kids and I guess they'll understand it better', 'Simple and brighter colours for younger children' and 'looks more appealing for children'. The same percentage of people with 15.6% either like the Red Tree more, or both artworks. One quote said: 'They are very different but equally as good as each other'.

Finally, I asked for people's favourite books from their childhoods. As you can imagine, I got a lot of variation in answers, but the three at top being: Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton and J. Wilson. Biff and Chip, Spot and the Very Hungry Caterpillar were also mentioned a couple of times.

This research was great for my project, and helped me to adjust my project slightly. For instance, with the amount of story and focus on my story I had, and using my illustrations, but so that they didn't cover an entire spread so there was room for enough words. So, at the end of this survey I decided to change the amount of text I had in my book, the quality of my story and accepting the fact that even though my illustrations were simple, in a kids book sometimes that's preferred.

If I had to critique the survey, it would be the amount of responses I had. I did post it on parenting forums and sites, but I didn't put much up on Facebook as I wanted more parents to answer the survey, however, if I had put it on Facebook it may have had more responses.

https://goo.gl/forms/rMhwXWGgEYONqvaq1

My Pitch

As part of our project, we had to produce a presentation to pitch our FMP ideas.

Notes of feedback was about the detail of my book: like the story, characters, etc. At this point in time I wanted a 'blank' character that all children could relate to. One note made was the gender of the character. Would it be obvious? I had decided my character to be a girl, but be simplistic. An additional note was how were boys going to relate or like the character?

It made me think about a lot, but I decided not to change the character, but give her a name and identity that isn't classed as too 'girly'. Instead, I also made sure the colour scheme was simple, and Ruri (my character) didn't dress up in too much pink or purple.

Another bit of feedback was timing. At that point, I had no illustrations or words written for this book. However, I had Easter holiday to come and no other priorities. This helped a lot, and I found days where I would just try out new styles and character concepts. By the end of the holidays, I had all the illustrations I needed, and a couple of stories.

My project and any changes

During the Easter holidays I really struggled with the style of illustrations of my book. I wanted a Shaun Tan type of style with my book, but I grew tired of the illustrations I tried to draft. I wanted more of a simplistic look for it. After stressing a lot over it, I came across with a book I bought last year - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It's a book that was aimed at children, but is also a huge hit with adults. I love the simplistic effect of the illustrations, and how they interact with the page. I wanted to have a similar idea with my book.

So, I drew up the illustrations (which I don't hate, whoop), and started to put it in InDesign.

I yet have to adjust the layout and possibly colouring of the book, based on feedback I'll receive tomorrow, which will be super helpful. Based on this feedback, I could keep going with my original Tan idea, or the new adjusted target audience with a Saint-Exupery inspiration.

Who knows?

I will. Tomorrow. And I'll update you.

Issues with my research

I didn't really come across huge issues I had to resolve in my research.

One thing that was a little bit of an issue was the interview with my sister. It was very informal, but I think that helped her overall with asking more questions and being more open. To keep her on track, I had her mum in the room, so she would behave - and she did.

Another issue I had was the questionnaire. It wasn't something I could just pass over the table as it had big questions about books and childhood. So, to fix this, I gave it to the parents and asked them to sleep on the answers, to get the most honest answer. This helped with the truth behind the answers themselves.

I also made a survey for more responses and a wider audience to talk to that isn't biased. As I was asking about what they'd buy for their children, I asked if they had any children. However, I made the rookie error of not asking for gender or age of the survey taker. Though it's not crucial, as I'm not looking for my target audience, it would've helped me to determine if younger people had different views on what to buy for children's (books wise), than maybe older people. This is something I entirely missed.

However, I did email my survey around, and put it on groups on Facebook (I actually put it on a book club page, that ended up to be a club event in Scotland, buy they said they'd sign it anyway), and this helped me get a wider audience than just my sister and parents.

Was my research helpful?

Long story short: yes.

The research I had helped me adjust my FMP slightly. Though I'm still going with a children's book, with morals, I not know it's not the most important thing. Artwork and illustrations speak out to kids, and sometimes even parents. This helped me realise that most of my time and work should be on the images in the book.

The research itself could've been slightly better. If I had the time, I would've loved to interview more children with a variety of ages. The child I interviewed was my sister, and this has it's peaks and lows. For instance, it seems biased that I interviewed my own family. However, I actually see this as a good thing, as I think other children wouldn't be as open and ask as many questions as she did.

I would've also liked to conduct an online survey, but I was more focused on the parent's of the child...(my parents).

The secondary research was god, and by reviewing the books myself I got to voice an opinion. I also looked at an article where the writer kinda agreed with me, but raised other points. This backed up my primary research.

FMP Research and Findings

My FMP hasn't changed since my research project - which makes all of that research valuable and helpful. In the research, I looked at children's books and morals. I did my own primary research on whether morals were important to children and parents in the books. I did this through an interview, and questionnaire.

For my primary research I needed to see what kids like, and how they reacted to it. For this, I read a story to my sister and voice recorded the interview. Because of this, I selected some books - some with obvious morals (The Red Tree), and some without (The Tiger Who Came To Tea), and some with morals but that are subtle (The Twits).

I also conducted a survey for the parents, to see how comfortable they are with the books being read to her.

Through the parent’s survey, I found that they chose books to buy their child based on the size of letters, and the pictures. They also made some predictions about the books she’d like - thinking mostly of the fun story, or the big pictures. One parent thought she’d enjoy The Red Tree the most, and they both agreed she’d like The Twits the least.

They were right. (Mostly.)

I found that the most enjoyable book for my sister was The Red Tree (with obvious morals), and the least enjoyable was The Twits (with subtle morals). However, a point made by her a lot was about the artwork of the books. The Red Tree has huge, creative drawings whereas The Twits is more rough sketching.

She liked The Tiger Who Came To Tea (with no morals), but she didn’t say much about it, and nearly forgot about it.

Week One - relfection

This week, most of my work was starting the FMP. This meant getting the basis of themes, content, concepts and ideas together. I did a couple of sketches in my sketchbook, but also on various bits of lost paper. By doing this, it helped me to decide to make the characters included more abstract rather than detailed. (No nose or expressions, etc.)

I also had to pitch my FMP idea. This went well, but a key point was made: develop the character(s) identity more. This is so children would remember the book, and it would have consistency throughout. With that, I think I'll try and add a couple more characters, but that's all for the story boarding. (Coming soon to a blogger near you.)

I have yet to make a vlog on my progress then I can iron out my research and findings and clear the way for making the actual book.

Here goes!

What can I plan better?

Planning this FMP, I know I needed a planner. (Fairly obvious.) So I put one together for all due assignments, and this keeps me on track on it all.

Areas of development I have so far are the fact that I'm doing the entire book - and I don't really illustrate. This may knock me off track, but with my colour-coded planner, I think I'll be able to do it.

Also, I was going to print the book myself at college, but after colour and quality questions about the printer I don't know how to answer to even how to ask, I think paying a professional company to do it for me is the best option.

Having a timeline on my FMP also helps, but I know I need to get the production together ASAP to get to the post-production. I did, also, get my FMP planned through a mind-map.

Having done most of my research in a project already really helps, also. So far, it's week one and I'm on track. I hope to come back next week and say the same thing.

My College Year So Far

At the start of the year, we were completing smaller tasks, like posters and ads and infographics. Some are okay, some I just want to forget I even made. These tasks were great as they meant a lot of work on Illustrator. This helped me to get familiar with the software and get used to deadlines. It was almost we were introducing the heftier projects. The poster next to this text is one of the tasks we did.

After Christmas we worked on bigger projects, and the first was an interactive book. Some struggles that came with this was learning something entirely new. I had never produced a digital and interactive book, so it was completely new. I also tried to do the bare minimum at first, mostly because writing the content had tired me out. However, after feedback, I decided to add more interactivity. I'm glad I did.
Great things about this were when I got it together and improved it, I came out with a product I really liked.


The next project was a live brief - working with a real client. This can be a little difficult, as it's very different from just creating something for college to go on my portfolio. Deadlines are also a lot more important, and you can't just say 'ah, yeah, I'm getting to that'.
However, this project almost being like a collaboration, it gives you accurate feedback and helps you to improve. It helps with time management, and, at the end, you can be like 'oh look at that leaflet, I designed that'.

We, at the same time, did a paper engineering project. This was a little lot hands on, and I didn't like it too much as I like designing digitally. It costs you card, money, and you've likely glued fingers to each other. But, this is a skill I'm glad I've developed. It's also a really creative way to tell a story.

Finally, before the FMP, we had a research project. I love writing and laying out documents - like a real nerd - so this was great. However, gathering research is time-consuming and having to sit still at a desk and type over 1500 words isn't as fun. Saying that, seeing your newly printed project in a binder, is the best thing.

I've done other projects too for other clients, and that's been great to try some live work.

Personal Branding

Today we had to think about branding ourselves.

It's not long until the end of the year, and a good idea is an online portfolio to promote ourselves. I've seen many examples of this, like J.K Rowling's website, etc.

I wanted a sleek, professional look for a website at first, but then I decided I wanted something more me. I love animation and designing children's stories, so an idea I had was having a little version of myself guiding you around my website.

It took me ages and my eyes are still a little cross-eyed from staring at the screen for so long - but I put a rough draft in Illustrator. It's of me with my old longer hair, and on each scroll she's getting frustrated with the hair, and so, in the end, she cuts it off.

Then you can see, at the end, me with short hair.

You may not able to tell, but I cut my hair, and it inspired it.

Laser Cutter

A laser cutter is an effective way of, well, cutting things out. Intricate designs that are too tricky or time-consuming for the scalpel or scissors can be effectively and accurately cut from a laser cutter. The laser reads a document with artwork and shapes on, and produces that work on card, or whatever material you want it on (within reason). This is a huge plus of a laser cutter. You save time and it's pretty accurate.

But you don't save money, as they can be pretty pricey. They can also be very fiddly, and you need to be careful what you design digitally is going to work out well on the cutter. You also need to be careful with health and safety around a laser cutter, and take safety precautions.

Unfortunately, I was away when the cutter was brought out and the class had a go at it, but I did get to see what was produced. Though it's quick and easy, I prefer the traditional old mat and scalpel, so I'll be creating my own pop-up book that way.

Accessibility and Tuning

How can I make my product accessible? 

My product is pretty simple, so it's easy to make it pretty accessible to all.

I don't have much text, just words on the front and even then it'll only be about three. It'll read something like 'change your perspective'. This will be in a font easy to read, and bold so you can see it relatively far away.

Colours are also going to be a minimum. I will use tones of blue, grey and white to distinguish layers of my tunnel book, and some yellow and orange on another side. This helps anyone who struggles with colour blindness. However, anyone who struggles to determine shades of colours, I will help (or try to) by spreading out the layers so you can see each part of the book, and the colours don't hugely matter. For instance, with the yellow for the happiness, the expression of the characters will tell you the same thing.

 How is it tuned for my audience?

My target audience is art lovers and fanatics. Maybe even people with a love of literacy and old time tales. This age range is 25 - 45 and the reason being is I want young people to admire the art, but you don't really outgrow a love of art.

The product itself is tuned for that audience as it tells a literal story, and grabs your interest. I hope people to be able to look at it for a while and see how little things (like the broken gate on one side, and the open gate on the other) and what it can mean. There are no small text or bright, fantastic colours. The focus is on the story behind the art.

Response Mechanism

What is it?

It's a way of responding to a certain company or organisation with no complications of pressure. You can get these in post or email, etc, where you can reach out to the said company with any questions or opinions. This is different to a sales technique as it takes the pressure off customers.

How will I use it?

One way I've used this in my leaflet is by including social media and TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor is a simple way for people to give feedback and comments about their experiences - where the managers or owners can also reply whether it be from a negative or positive post.

This is a great way of gathering feedback, and also answering any visitor's questions or queries before or after their arrival. It gets the museum involved digitally, and gives it a wider audience.

Illustrative Styles

To look at other styles of tunnel books, I decided to make a mood board on Pinterest. The board here is full of modern and old styles of tunnel books, so I started to look into it with more depth. The older styled book had a lot of painting-like art included, and incredible detail. I liked these styles, but I decided to look at more modern designs.

With some Googling, I found some more modern designs that were quite intricate in their own way. For instance, this fold out street of houses, and the woods behind. It's simple but very effective.

The next series I found I really love. This is a series of tunnel books by the same artist. It's very minimalistic with the colours and art, which I really like. You can figure out what's going on with the art and characters, and even make up your own story. The colours also give the books amazing depth, and I really love it.

Bearing this in mind, I started to sketch my own 'simple' design of the story I was using. I used simple colours and purposely didn't include any detail like the little girl's expression, etc.

I also did a prototype thats very rough, but it was good to get a feel of how much I'd need to include and how to layout the design.
 

My Museum Leaflet

For our live brief, we are working with the director of The Museum of Bath at Work to create a new leaflet to attract more visitors. Some of the issues the museum has is the distance, the look itself and the lack of appeal to certain groups.

Last week, in a meeting we established that the age group that hardly visited was 14-25 year olds. The client wanted to attract both locals and tourists and had some opinions on their current brochure.

I conducted some research of my own, and found them on Tripadvisor. They actually had excellent reviews, where people were saying the short walk was worth it, and the staff were lovely, etc. I wanted to use this to my advantage, so I looked the demographic of people who use Tripdavisor. The average age was 25-39, and this also matched the demographic of Bath visitors. Because of this I decided to make adult tourists my target audience, and link a lot of the leaflet to the website and internet aspect of the museum.

So, I designed the leaflet as a draft and soon filled in dummy text and 'dummy' images. The leaflet came together nicely, and I used trendier colours that are used on the website. I made a few changes from the draft version to the professional.

Today, I mounted the final first draft onto foam board, with a few comments, and we all headed to a meeting with the client. It was short and sweet, but it answered any question we had or they had.

A note made about my design was that the museum's logo was at the bottom, and in a leaflet rack it wouldn't show. So, there's two ways I can solve this: move it, or come up with a snappy headline to go on the top (where the dummy text is).

So far, it's a good start.

Music Flyer

In college, we were given a short task of creating a pamphlet/flyer for another higher education course in college. We were all given a lot of information and notes along with it, but no design notes or guidelines.

Straight away I went to the college website. I figured that the flyer should link to the college with it's colours and brand, but also the prospectus gave me some idea for the design. So, this is how I came up with my initial design.

This design was liked, but there were some notes to take on board. For instance, the colours when printed were muddy. This is because I could only get the colours from the website so when printed they didn't have the same effect. Another big point was the focus, it wasn't on 'HNC Music' which the client would've preferred. The picture used was also unclear. I had gotten this from the website but it was the only part not covered in text, so it was a little ineffective.

A note was made the client liked mine and another student's, so we decided to work together to produce a similar leaflet. We ended up with a couple of versions: one with the other student's picture and one without.

The one with the other student's picture worked well, and we designed the layout and colours a little to fit better. However, one thing I noticed that bugged me was one picture was in black and white, and the other side of the design was colour.

This led us to grabbing a new picture and tweaking the design for it. This worked really well, and I'm really proud of our collaboration.

Typography in Handmade Books

To look into typography in handmade books, I looked at examples. There were a variety, where some had printed the type, and some had done it by hand. It depended on the time it was made, and what content there was. The printed fonts were more professional and modern, whereas the handwritten fonts were artistic or even very old.

So I looked into hand-drawn type on Pinterest and came across some interesting ones. I made this mood-board here, and I even drew some myself. These fonts looked really cool and interesting, as they can be more artistic than letters, which I like. It also shows you, you can incorporate banners and objects into font to create an even more hand-drawn/made look.

I drew some out in my sketchbook, and some I really like (like a melting E) and some didn't work out too well (like the big fail of an F). This helped me to realise I wanted to develop in hand-drawn type, which lead me to my next idea...

I looked further into hand-drawn type but in a more creative way. There are examples of typography where you produce the text using objects. Here are some examples.

I liked this idea as it was unique, and I could always come up with something linked to my content. Thinking about this I thought it could be good if I could use match sticks or ash (probably not ash) to create my own typography.

I wanted to keep my font simplistic as I'm not including many words (only The Little Match-Seller, or something like 'see through new eyes'). Either that, or I could use my fanciest handwriting as the story was created by a poet in the 1800's.

Handmade Book Idea

For our new brief on handmade books, we were given a theme of fairy tales. We were also given a printed brief with some inspirational ideas. I wanted to create something clever and unique, but not overly complicated. A liked a picture from the brief, and knew I wanted to do something very similar.

It's a paper pair of binoculars, but in one eyes is one view and in the other is another. I loved this creative take on perspective, so I thought to portray a fairytale is the same way.

At first I thought I could do something like The Little Mermaid where the princess was worried about losing her voice, but in the other eye the prince was talking to chatty girls, wishing for someone who was quieter. I thought this would be funny and clever, but I kept searching.

We watched a video in class where a book artist would create paper scenes that were quite obscene, but no words. This remind me of my own idea as I'd have no words to describe what was happening, but I liked the idea of having a bit of a twisted idea.

So, I went back to Google and looked at other stories by Danish poet and writer, Hans Christian Anderson. One story I remember reading years ago fit perfectly with my idea. The Little Match-Seller. The story is of a homeless little girl who tries to sell matches, in the cold of winter. She ends up on New Year's Eve burning all of her matches for warmth but also because she would start to dream. Food, warmth, a home and her grandmother were in these dreams, and she ends up leaving with her grandmother, leaving her frozen body behind.

In the story people who see her feel bad for her, seeing how frozen she is and all of her burnt matches, but they don't know about the happiness the little girl dreamt about and died to. So, this gave me the idea of having one eye looking at a sad, cruel scene of a frozen body, but the other is the girl with her grandmother walking away to light.

I have designed this in my sketchbook and I'm excited to get
my hands stuck in.

Havard Referencing

Referencing in your own work is important, as it’s giving credit to using other’s finding and data. Without legal referencing, it’ll be a case of copyright - and it’s also not fair to take someone’s findings and not credit them.

There is a formal way of referencing and that is called Harvard Referencing. This is a great way to reference and quote in essays and research projects, too. To quote a book you have to include the information in this order:

Author, Surname, Initials. (Year) Title. Edition if not 1st. Place of publication: Publisher.

If you want to cite a website or article, you need to include the information in this order:

Author (Year) Title of web page. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

If there is no author, then you need to provide the organisation instead. How you'd put these in an essay is either at the end, or you can cite it in the paragraph you need. For example, new research from the Telegraph (2017) has shown 'a new study has suggested that eating chilli peppers could be the secret to a longer life.'

My FMP Idea(s)

Though our final major project seems so far away, we've already started to think and plan towards it. In media theory, we are starting our research project. Though it isn't final, I'm trying to choose a topic related to my FMP.

Research comprises "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." (Wikipedia, 2016). In its most general sense, research involves investigating a topic to learn more about it.

A research project is a form of collecting and presenting all of this data, in a certain structure. First, you introduce your topic, and any theories you have. After that you present all of your primary and secondary research, ending with a conclusion and an outcome, based on your findings. You can present this in many ways, but the most popular is in print form - like a professional booklet.

You can use many research methods in a research project, and that's one of the great things about it. For instance, focus groups, questionnaires, case studies, etc. The purpose of all of this, of course, is to gain knowledge in an area of study, and draw up the best outcome you can.

For my research project, I wanted to link it to an idea I had for my FMP.

However, until earlier today my FMP idea was undecided.

I was going to research something I'm passionate about: preventing animal cruelty, modern day novels, or something else. The first idea was hard to link to media, though there are many documentaries on animal cruelty like Black Fish and Tyke the Elephant, it's hard to make this into a publishing project. Also, I wouldn't know what angle to take this on, though I am passionate about it.

My next idea was modern day novels. I am passionate about writing, and I could do a research project on how books and the industry has changed, and why? There were many angles I could take with this, like are e-books now the way forward? Is reading as popular as before? However, these have been done before (many times, too), and even myself who is passionate about reading and writing got bored of the idea.

Then, this morning, I thought of a while new angle for my research project and FMP (and it includes writing).

The idea for my final project is to print a children's book, but the content was something I couldn't figure out. So, I made my research project question: Are children's book better with morals?

I already have some knowledge of children's book for a number of reasons: a) I wanted to work in a  children's book publishing firm, b) I want to work somewhat in creating children's stories in films or books, and c) I have a five year old sister.

I personally love children's books with morals in, whether subtle or literally quoted in the book. I think they teach people great values and put it into a whole new perspective. However, whether or not children get these messages from books is interesting.

I made an online mind-map to help me organise my ideas, and how to develop them. These questions helped me make my research project more solid and structured, and seem more complete. Now I can develop on this confidently as I progress into the brief.

Reflection

So, now I've finished my project, it's time to reflect on it.

The first stage was planning and drafting, and this included my research, cover, page layouts and any feedback I developed on. I liked this stage, as this was the designing part and having creative ideas. Halfway through I got feedback from my peers about my drafts, including my own critique, and this really helped me make some decisions about what I should use or work on. This led me to the next stage.

Designing in the software. InDesign is something I have been using more recently than ever, and this interactive book led me to new skills to learn. However, at the start, my book was very basic, with content and images, but the only interactive element was the contents page and links to the other pages. This was also a new skill I had learned to use, but I got some feedback: where was the interactive book?

So, this led me back to the drawing board and I planned where I'd add video, audio, slideshows and external links. I used online tutorials and the toolbar to navigate my way around, and soon interactive elements were added in my book. You can read more about the changes in this blog.

Finally, I exported it as an ePub and flicked through on iBooks. First impressions were that I was proud of it, and I loved the more interactive elements. I had interactivity on almost every page (if not all), and some of the interactivity was quite creative. However there were flaws, too. The layout of the text, although styled to the 60's, had some issues. I had left some paragraphs split up in odd places, and sometimes the text didn't quite flow. I did fix these major issues before exporting it again. Also, there was still more room for interactivity, and I could've added GIFs or more videos or external links or articles.

So, final question: is this my best work? 

Honestly? No. However, it is some of my best work, and I'm proud that I kept working at it and made it the product it is.

Our Mini-Brief

- Explain Brief
- Starting Point (any questions?)
- Design
- Sizes
- Final

We were given a brief to internally advertise a degree-level course for music in Bath College. We were given a lot of information to include, or to give space to include, about fees, benefits and course entailment.

I started with what I knew about the college - the brand. I got the colours and fonts from the website, and I included pictures from the college prospectus also. Next was the layout. I decided to use colour and lay-overs to make the pamphlet 'pop' out. Though I used dummy text, I did change the original 'If you enjoyed L3 and want to carry on studying here but at University level, why not apply for HNC Music?'. It was a bit too long and robotic, so I used the title: 'Are you ready to study at University level?'. This makes it personal to the reader and peaks their interest.

I printed my draft and realised the colours I used (though official) were web colours, and looked 'muddy' on print. So, I altered the colours I used. I also made small changes, like the position of the images, the emphasis on the you, the lining up of the text. All of these tweaks and changes made my final pamphlet - and one I'm proud of.

The only issue I have with it, is on the right-side the dark blue box with the teal text. No matter what I did, altering colours and positions, it didn't really work as print. Digitally it was fine, but on print it was hard to distinguish. I think with more time I could've added a bit more flow and colour to that page.

Also, I didn't get around to printing a poster version, only the A5 hand-out.