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