Digital graphics evaluation pro forma
- 2. Use this template to help you evaluate your project. You should give specific details about your work. You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project. You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are good or why you are proud of them. You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve. Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here. Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.
- 3. Does your final product reflect your original intentions? • Compare your planning/digital flat plans/ storyboards to your final product Overall I feel that what I first intended on creating, the look and design is similar to what my final product presents. Before I started the production of my book I had to plan what I intended on creating, I did so by firstly using mind maps to write down my initial ideas, for example I started by thinking of possible adaptations I could make from the original story I found online, then I started thinking about the different locations and settings for my book. The initial ideas used in my mind map planning are what can be seen in my final product. I then went on to create mood boards which featured existing images that I found online that related to what I planned on creating, for example similar locations and settings and also characters that gave me inspiration for my final product. I then created initial story boards to plan out my story in full by producing draft drawings of each page of my book, I used these story boards as a way of guiding me through the 2 weeks of production so that I could see what I indented on creating, the look of the story boards reflects a basic idea of my final product. Finally after making my story boards I went on to make digital flat plans which was a reflection of story boards with the use of existing images I found online, these flat plans allowed me to present a digital plan of ideas for my final product. Mood board Digital flat plans final product
- 4. How well have you constructed your images? • How well have you constructed your images? You could talk about the overall visual appearance and well as the use of texture and colour. Overall I believe I constructed the pages for my book effectively, I feel I achieved what I set out to create initially. I decided to create the page of my book by simply using the shape tool on Photoshop to bind shapes together to create my characters, settings and props. I chose to use this technique because before we started production we tested out a few different techniques like rotoscoping and shape tasks, from that I found that I could easily and effectively create a well illustrated story by using this technique as I felt it appealed to young audience as it presented a cartoon look and feel. There are obviously flaws to my technique and the end result of my product, for example I felt that the quality and detail in my pages could have been of a higher standard, as well as the construction of the pages, as I felt that in parts I could have constructed my pages differently so that what the text was saying made more sense with what the page illustrations were showing. However I felt that the colours used and shape design of my characters and props were what I was initially aiming to create for my desired target audience.
- 5. How well have you used text to anchor your images • You should talk about the combination of words, images and text. This is the point that I feel was my weakest, I believe that the way I constructed my images and the way I set out my pages makes it is easy for a young audience to follow and understand, however I feel that I could have been more clear linking the text with the illustrations on my page. There are points where the text on each page describes multiple things that are going on in the story while the page illustration only presents one thing, for example on page 5 of my book it describes Sammy successfully filling up the sieve with space gunk from the well while the illustrations shows this, however the text then goes on to describe her getting the spaceship and going home, this part is not shown in any illustrations which I feel is a weakness in my story. I realized this could be a problem while in production so to tackle this problem I decided to implement small boxes in the corner of my page that presents an action or event that is not shown in the main illustration, I did this so that the children viewing this book would get a better understanding of what’s going on in the story instead of having to use their imagination to build an understanding of what the page is portraying. Page5Here is an example of me using A 2nd image in the corner of my to give my audience a clearer understanding of what’s going on in the page. I used this box to present the frog giving Sammy the clay and moss used to block the holes in the sieve so she can fill it. This example also presents how I could have presented better anchorage, as I did not present Sammy leaving in her spaceship in this page.
- 6. Is your product suitable for your audience? • Reference your proposal • Give an audience profile and describe suitability in reference to content Initially when I first set out to create a book that was to be written for an audience of children I had to take into consideration exactly what of an audience that would be and the methods that I would need to use to fully appeal to that audience. So I made a proposal in the planning stage that and in it I stated the exact audience I indented on aiming my content towards and why I believe my content would interest this said audience, to begin with I decided I would focus to target an audience aged 4-6 year olds as I felt my story was simple enough for children this age to follow and understand while also showing an interest in the content. I then discussed the fact my story may appeal more toward a female audience as the main character was a girl, however I felt that this wouldn’t be an issue as I felt the basis of the story being space travel and adventure meant that both genders would take an interest towards the story, so I stated that I intended to target both a young female and male audience. With all this in mind I felt that the content I finally produced met just what I initially said in my proposal, I believe the work I produced still appeals to a young audience and I ensured that both female and males would take interest in what I created. My final product features text easy enough for young kids aged 4-6 and onwards to follow and understand. Furthermore I believe the illustrations I made are to a standard that still intrigues this age range while also still being suitable for them to look at, meaning there isn’t any content that I believe would be unsuitable to show young children. My final product appeals to an audience of young children no older than 6, both male and female and mainly appeals to young kids that find an interest in space travel, aliens and magic as they are all aspects featured in my book. For the female audience the aspects that suitably appeal to them are the fact the main character is a girl, this allows them to relate to her and also the element of the frog turning into a prince like a lot of classic children's tales, this presents a sense of living happily ever after, a good image for young girls to dream of. The aspects of my book that appeal to the young boys side of my target audience are the featured elements of space travel and adventure, I believe as a young boy these ideas interest and intrigue you, this is why I think my book is suitable for both young boys and girls.
- 7. What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used? • Reference specific tools you used with images To create my book I chose to use a technique showed to me at the start of the rotation involving the use of the shape tools and an already existing image, you use the existing image as a sort of stencil and use the shape tool to create what the image shows by adding shapes that match the image over it, in my case perhaps an asteroid or a characters face. The technique meant it was easy for me to create good quality illustrations for a young audience and also time efficient as it didn’t take me long to create the characters needed for each page then the page its self, including background, buildings and props. The biggest aspect I liked about my technique and probably the most useful was the warp tool, as the shape tool only allowed me to create certain shapes like ellipses and rectangles which limited me on what I could create however I found that the warp tool allowed me alter and modify already set shapes into new shapes that gave me a wider range of what I could create and also allowed me to make more creative illustrations instead of limiting me to only ordinary shapes. However there were elements towards my technique that I didn’t like, for instance I was using the 2D shape tool to create my 3D illustrations, so I found this difficult as I would have to think through what I was creating and how I could use a combination of 2D shapes to create an illustration that looked three dimensional.
- 8. Warp tool --> The warp tool was probably one of the most important and useful tools I used in my technical approach. The tool helped me modify ordinary shapes so that I could create more effective illustrations. Using it allowed me to have 12 different points in which I could warp the shape to how I wanted.
- 9. What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks? Overall I feel that the look of my final product is professional and I like the fact that I have created a book to the standards of an actual children's book that you may find in a shop, this surprised me as I wasn’t too confident at the start going in but now I've finished I am happy with the look of the work I’ve created. I feel there are elements of my book that stand out, such as the pages that feature scenes in space, I believe that I created these backgrounds well, adding more depth to the stars in the back ground instead of just having a simple sky background. With this in mind I feel that my finally products look is lacking detail, for instance in certain scenes like inside the house I feel that I could possibly add further detail in them by adding more props and furniture to the scenes to give greater detail. Another aspect of the look of my final product that I like is the choice of font I decided to go with, I believe it was a good choice as it is easy to read being simple while also not boring compared to if I had just chosen a common font like Calibri. I was least confident on creating my characters at the start, I’m not the most artistic person, however I felt that my end product presents well constructed characters in good detail, especially the main character Sammy. I like the way she turned out as in the planning stage I was unsure of what to make her look like, I took many ideas into consideration from existing characters however I feel that my final product show creativity and originality as I used ideas from the top of my head to create her.
- 10. Why did you include the content you used? • Images, fonts, effects, colours At first it took me a while to find the right font to use, I tested out a number of different ones until I came across the font ‘Chalk dust SE’, I felt it was a good choice because it was easy to read while also still appearing interesting, unlike if I used a standard common font like Calibri. The colour scheme in my book differs through out, I chose not to focus mainly on bright colours but instead used colours that felt represented the scenes best, for example in the pages where Sammy is in space it was important to use darker colours as space is a vast dark space so ensuring I presented this was important. For the colour scheme of the main character Sammy I could of just chose to design her in bog standard white astronaut suit, however I felt she needed to stand out more so I chose to add elements of pink to her outfit, for instance the helmet and gloves, I felt this allowed her to stand out more while also appeal to the girl side of my audience with her chosen colour scheme. In some pages where there was too much text to describe with one picture I decided to implement a 2nd picture to present further illustrations and to give the reader more visual information and better understanding. I decided to include this content because I felt that the reader may struggle to understand what’s going on in the pages, as at times there were multiple different things being describe in the text yet I could only illustrate one thing per page, so including a second picture helped me to present more information and also describe illustratively what the text is saying. The layout for my text has been done in a way so that the text its self is on the page along with illustrations, the text has no separate background behind it, instead just whatever illustrations is on the page will be behind it for example possibly the floor to Sammy’s room at the bottom of the page. I decide to position my text like this so I could minimize the number of pages I’d have altogether, instead of having a separate page for text, this is because I had a limit to the number of pages for my book and I had already reached the max for the illustrations.
- 11. Here is an example of an existing product that has used the similar technique to me, the marvel comic book Spider-man includes a number of other smaller illustrations around the main illustration, in this case it has been used to present spider man answering the phone then an illustration of the two kidnappers with his aunt on the other end of the line and then a final one presenting spider-man finding the kidnappers. I took inspiration finding existing products like these that use this technique as I found it was an effective way of sliming down page numbers as I could present with a smaller illustration what was going on in the page without having to create an entirely new page. Here is another example of an existing product that uses a similar page and text layout to me. This is from a book by Dr. Seuss and what I took inspiration from was how he positions the text of the page, instead of using a separate page just for the text he instead places the text over the illustrations but makes sure to only position the text over plain spaces like the grass in this case, this so he doesn’t disrupt any of the illustrations by covering it with text while also minimalizing the pages he uses. I have used a similar technique as I too have chosen to place the text on top of the page in blank spaces to avoid covering any important illustrations.
- 12. What signs, symbols or codes have you used in your work? • Choices of colour, style, locations, character design and tone all give additional meaning to your work. when creating my main character I knew I had to create a female character that appeared adventurous while also appealing to the target audience of young girls, so when I created her I decided to implement the colour pink to symbolize that she was a girl, as I thought some people could have found it difficult to realize at first as she is dressed in a full space outfit while also having a multi gender name. the final page of my book is a sunset while the prince and Sammy walk away to live happily ever after, the reason I chose to use a huge sunset to finish of my book is because sunset’s symbolize the end of something, the end of the day, the end of light, so I felt it was fitting to include one to finish off my book and also mark the ending. When creating the evil step mother I knew I had to create a character which wasn’t likable and could clearly be distinguished as an evil step mother. To do so I decided to create her wearing an old fashioned Victorian dress as felt these have connotations to a strict mother along with the addition of giving her evil looking facial expressions. When planning to create the location for the well at the end of the galaxies I knew I had to construct scene in space that looked desolate and out of the way so I decided to locate the well on top a small asteroid floating around in space, leaving not much but other asteroids and the sight of stars in the distance, I did this so I could present the solitariness of the well as it is meant to be located at the end of the galaxy.
- 13. Audience Responses Cultural competence: Media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to be able to interpret them. At a basic level, this could mean being able to read the language that a magazine is written in. At a deeper level, it means being able to interpret signs and symbols that we use a visual shorthand to communicate ideas. We recognise these signs in our own culture but find it harder to understand when looking at others. We create and attach meaning to signs and symbols in many different forms. 13Creative Media Production 2012
- 14. Audience Responses Cultural competence: What is this? This is a Norwegian Pine tree, covered in snow and with a red ribbon on. Our cultural understanding allows us to interpret its meaning. To us, in British society, it means Christmas, presents and family. This is because we share a cultural knowledge. 14Creative Media Production 2012
- 15. Audience Responses Cultural competence: There are many other signs and symbols that we attach meaning to. A leather jacket can imply rebellion. A sports car can imply wealth and power. A cross can represent religion. 15Creative Media Production 2012
- 16. Audience Responses Cultural competence: Visual representations of everyday objects are often the same the world over. A car appears as a car, no matter what country it appears in. What that car means however, can be very different depending on your cultural background. 16Creative Media Production 2012
- 17. What representations can be found in your work? • How are men, women or children shown in your work? Does your work feature different ages, races, social groups or religions? Does a lack of any variety of character types create its own representation? As my book only features 2 women and one frog, I had only 2 female representations to present. For Sammy i knew for the story I was going to portray I had to create a strong young female character that was space adventurous while also still portraying a young girl. I took a lot of inspiration from an already existing cartoon called “Atomic Betty” which is a young children’s cartoon series follow a young girl from earth who secretly lives another life saving the galaxy, I based a lot of Sammy’s characteristics similar to Betty’s as they both are adventurous space travellers with good morals and a strong determination. For the step mother I knew I had to create a women that showed no remorse for her step daughter, with the appearance and personality of an evil and mean woman, I didn’t specifically base my character on an already existing one, however a lot of young children’s fairytales feature an evil step mother so I based mine around the classic stereotypes of what most fairytales use when portraying an evil step mother. The stereotypes being, ugly, mean, remorseless for the step kid, evil and jealous, I feel I represented a number of these in my version of an evil step mother.
- 18. What style have you employed in your products? • Discuss influences/ existing products • What visual style does your work have and why did you choose it? Initially when I first started out my plans for the visual style were to be a modern style, meaning it would differ from traditional children’s like Red Ridding Hood or Goldilocks and the three bears, as these book’s visual style had been made in a way which made the illustrations look like they had been drawn freehand. I didn’t want to create I children’s book like this as I’m not confident in drawing and find my skills are more suited to using Photoshop to create my illustrations, so I decided to go for a modern visual style. A modern visual style uses brighter fuller colours that have been clearly computer generated, modern styles easily be distinguished from traditional styles. When creating my main character I took inspiration from existing characters to help me come up with the look of my own character, for my main character I based it around an already existing kids cartoon character called ‘Atomic Betty’. At first I planned to make my character similar looking to this already existing one as I liked the visual style of her, however when furthering in a pre planning stage I realized that I wanted to be more original with my main characters style so I decided to take aspects from Atomic Betty while also still coming up with mostly my own ideas. As I went for a modern visual style when creating the characters and scenes for my book, the overall visual style can be interrupted as simple, I haven’t gone for a complex and highly detailed style, instead insisted on using a combination of the shape tool and the warp tool to construct my characters and scenes in a straightforward and easy to follow way, I felt that over complicating the illustrations would firstly take too long to make and also the target audience I set out to target my book towards don’t always want to see highly complex and detailed illustrations, I feel a simple modern visual style fits with my age range.
- 19. Here is an example of both modern and traditional visual styles in children’s books. The images in the middle and to the right are both taken from traditional children’s book, you can clearly see the difference in visual styles from the modern style in the left corner. The modern image presents a more cartoon style with brighter colours and clearer detail, you can clearly tell that it has been designed using some sort of computer software. Whereas the two traditional images have clearly been hand drawn and painted as you can tell by the way in which the characters have been created.
- 20. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and planning • How did the planning and research help • How well did you manage your time • Reference specific examples I found the pre-production documents very helpful in strengthening my idea for my children's book. It allowed me firstly jot down my initial ideas in words on a mind map, any ideas I came up with I put on to this document, for example ideas like the locations, the possible adaptations I could create from the original story I found, characters and more. I found the mind map very helpful as it gave me a basis of ideas to work from once I furthered in my pre-production stage and then more once I started my actual production. Whilst planning, to give myself a clearer understanding of the look of what I was going to create I made digital flat plans which involved getting existing images from the internet and piecing them together to form an idea what my pages were going to look like, the digital flat plans helped me out a lot, I found this a strength of my pre-production process as it helped me visualize the basis of what I going to create and also helped me create a page design for each separate page meaning I once I started the production I could look back on it to give me a visual plan what what I needed to make. In the planning booklet I felt that there was little need to fill in a health and safety form, as I felt there are very little risks involved with illustrating a children's book using mac’s, however I understand that these risk checks need to be done and I also understand that even though there are little dangers to my own health involved while using Mac’s, there are still risks that need to be taken into consideration like spending long hours looking at a computer screen, as this can cause serious damage to your eyes. Another part that I found helpful within the pre-production stage was the use of the planning schedule. The planning schedule really helped me plan out exactly what I was going to do each session at a time, totaling in 10 sessions I planned out what I believed I could achieve in the time given to me and also was helpful to look back on while I was in the production stage.
- 21. Historical and cultural context • How does your work compare to what has come before? What other similar products have existed in the past? What current products exist? The whole basis of my book is set around a time in the future where space travel is possible, the book takes places in space, presenting a young girl going on an adventure to the end of the galaxy, this is a common topic to be found In children’s books making there a number of already existing products to go from. An example of one existing product could be the book ‘ The Berenstain bears on the Moon’. The book features two bears and there dog going on a space adventure to the moon. The book is similar to mine in the sense that they both feature aspects of space, space travel and adventure. Another book that features a similar narrative is the book series called ‘Sardine in outer space’. The book features a young adventurous pirate girl called Sardine and her cousin Lou as they venture round the universe to try stop the chief executive dictator of the universe, Supermuscleman. The book is similar to mine as it features a young adventurous girl as the main character, as well as featuring the idea of adventuring round space and space travel itself. The illustrations in this book I believe can be related to mine as they are purposely designed in an unrealistic way, so that it appeals to children more.
- 22. Feedback 1 • What do you like about the graphics? I like the overall look of your graphics I think they are well thought out. I also like the fact that you have changed they way your main character looks and the movement. As I think it adds a lot to your pages since the 3 of them do look similar. i also like the squares you have added in at the top corner as it shows more to the pages and story then what we can mainly see already. • What would you do to develop the graphics? I think an improvement you could have is your text I find that on the grey it is a little hard to read in my opinion. Which means it could be harder for a child to read demanding on your target audience. I also think there could have been some aspects that you could have maybe changed in the background so that they are a little but more different and not all the same in the aspect of your background. But overall I would say your pages are well constructed and thought out and go with the text that you have put on each page.
- 23. Feedback 2 • What do you like about the graphics? I really like the small cornered off squares you have used to show more of the story than we would have originally seen. I think the use of different expressions was used really well as it gives the reader more of an understanding of what is happening in the story and how the character is reacting. The colours used work really well as the bright pinks and greens stand out a lot against the duller backgrounds • What would you do to develop the graphics? I think that the backgrounds could have involved a little more change with each page but apart from that it is really good
- 24. Feedback 3 • What do you like about the graphics? – I feel the striking designs and distinctive colour can easily appeal to younger audiences. – The character designs are simple, but can be clearly distinguished. – I like the idea of the astronaut being a woman, which I think will help appeal to young girls and some women. • What would you do to develop the graphics? – I would use less striking lines for the backgrounds to make it look more realistic and more distinguishable from the characters. – I would also improve some of the grammar a bit.
- 25. Peer Feedback • Summarise peer feedback and discuss – Responses you agree with There was a lot of both positive and negative feedback that I both agreed with, for example there was a number of points stating how they liked how I used extra illustrations in the corner of pages to present further visual information. I also agree with the point stating a change in my grammar, as some children may struggle to understand the words I have used, I took this into consideration and made changes to my final product. – Responses you disagree with I found most feedback helpful and agreed with most, however I didn’t agree with the point stating that I need to change or alter the space scene so that it didn’t all look the same, I disagreed with this simply because I only presented 3 pages to the person giving feedback and all those three pages took place only at the well so it was all still the same scene. I took the feedback into consideration still and worked on creating more diverse and different backgrounds instead of having the exact same.