Reflection

Reflection of Picture Book Project

Francesca Hannah Veal Project Four, Reflection , , , ,

As I have come to the end of my project I have begun to reflect on the work I have produced, what I like about my designs and what I wish I could have improved/thought about more.

I think the book Is well designed to aim for my target demographic audience of three to seven year old’s, with the painted style of the designs, rough brush and pencil strokes and simple designs that are easy to follow.

One aspect I wish I could have worked harder on/spent more time researching and creating would be my font design of my book. The font does hold connotations of more “old, classic” children’s books such as The Peter Rabbit books and the old Winnie The Pooh books which was my intention. However, thinking back I wish I spent more time looking at more modern and contemporary picture books and the fonts they use. If I had more time I could have loved to have created my own font for the book, with a handwritten style.

Character Development 3I am glad when I designed my individual characters that I made sure each figure had a different aspect to their image to identify them. To specify which gender the characters were this was as easy as adding eyelashes onto the female bees which immediately made it obvious. I feel this will make it easier for my audience to follow the storyline with there being so many characters.

Another amendment I would have made if I could re-design the book, is having block colours as the background. I found it very hard to make it obvious the characters were in a scene but still have a white background. For example: Pages 3, 7 and 8 below, I tried to keep the background white to keep consistency of the design throughout. Therefore I used faded brush tools to create the background of the scene central of the page. Looking back, I wish I didn’t do this and used block colours for my background of each scene – I just found this hard to do with all the  small items that needed to be seen in order for the storyline to make sense.

 

I am very glad I chose line painting to create my designs. I found it enjoyable to create my characters and images. To improve on these however I wish I researched more into how to create line paintings and watch YouTube tutorials, so I could learn some new skills and my work would look better. I am frustrated at myself that I did not do this because it was my intention to do this when I started the project, however I can only learn from my mistakes and I may practice my line painting and explore tutorials online in the future.

If I had finished my designs with enough time, I would have loved to have asked children, and parents with children to read my book and receive feedback on the designs and storyline of the book. Having feedback from my target demographic audience would have enabled me to have a look at my finished project and make any adjustments that could have made a big difference in appealing to my audience.

I hope my designs and storyline successfully get across the message of the book. I’m glad I chose the animal Bee to transfer this message has the Bee are known and hold connotations of teamwork and hard work, which will hopefully help get my message across – that individual skills and talents are very important but they are most important when working in part of a team, and it is crucial that all team members work together.

 

Reflection and Progress from Feedback

Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Project Three, Reflection , , ,

Since receiving the feedback from my tutor and group in week five’s workshop, I have worked on amending the areas that needed changing in order to fit the brief and tidy my work up.

I removed some text from my Business Card to make the card look less ‘full’ and ‘busy’, and remodelled it on my mock-ups.

This tiny adjustment does clean the card up, ensuring its professionalism.

I also worked on the font of my posters. Again, a very simple adjustment of spacing out the letters slightly so the text is more readable and therefore will be more likely to achieve its goals by attracting people.

The most constructive criticism I received was about my website. It mostly circulated around the fact  had no actual photographs of women in the gym, and therefore the realism that this was a website for a gym was not quite there and looked tacky and unprofessional. I therefore removed a large amount of work from the right and left side, keeping my central hexagon navigational icons, and added in photographs I had found online. I do very much prefer my new website, as the simplicity is enough to make the site look attractive enough.

 

Feedback on Designs

Francesca Hannah Veal Project Three, Reflection ,

Week five’s workshop we sat as a group and looked through everyone’s ‘final’ designs. I presented the PDF document below, including my logos and slogans, colour palette, business card presented as a mock-up, two versions of my website and the four posters.

Final designs

The Feedback I got from my group and tutor:

  • Business Card: It may need some text taking out so it doesn’t look so busy and ‘full’.
  • Good colour palette and use of colours throughout the package.
  • They liked the hexagon design used throughout.
  • Posters: Unsure on the font – maybe needs spacing out slightly.
  • The branding may need some actual photographs to make it look more realistic
  • Themes going through: powerful, clean, energetic, strong women
  • Possibly make the woman in the slogan more slanted – try italics?

 

Poster Advertisements

Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Project Three, Reflection , , , , ,

I had an idea to create motivational posters which would be scattered around the local area of my gym to persuade my target audience to join.

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My idea grew from seeing motivational gym quotes on my Instagram news-feed and I wanted to create something similar.

 

 

 

 

fabletics
“You wake up early for a morning spin, you gave up carbs, you eat kale, the weather is never an excuse, you dance to burn calories, you always take the stairs. You work so hard trying to look good, you should look good while you’re doing it.

 

 

I went with the quote “ALWAYS USE THE STAIRS” which I had seen before on a gym wear advert “Fabletics” in the link here: VIDEO

 

 

 

 

At first I began by drawing out a woman and then a background which I first thought I could scan onto a computer and upload them into Photoshop and edit then together and add colour, then placing the text on top of the image in a thick san serif font.

I then thought over my idea and realised nothing else in my company branding would be drawn out, and the image won’t fit in with the rest of the branding of my campaign. So I started again, from scratch.

I wanted to keep it simple, but effective. I used my research of quotes and found a font that looked feminine, yet strong and powerful and ‘punchy’. I wanted to mix up my colour scheme and try out different colours to go with different quotes. I found silhouettes of women on Google images and imported them into the background in a different shade of the same colour.

This is just a first draft, and I will be altering my idea. I want to add my finalised logo into the bottom left corner, and also social media links such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and the companies website.

I have become very fond of this font I have used and I may use it as a branded font throughout this project. Also looking at this draft over all, I like the colours I have used and may look into branding these colours together somehow.