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.