Reflection of Picture Book Project

April 21, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Project Four, Reflection Final Work, hoi, i, 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.

I 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

February 23, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Project Three, Reflection development, feedback, 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

February 18, 2016February 22, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Project Three, Reflection 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?

Colour Identity

February 15, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Experiments, Project Three Colour Swatches, Connotations, development, Experiments, Meanings, Project Three, reflection

Though out this project I have found deciding on a colour palette which will work the best for my target audience a very challenging aspect. Being a female only gym i wanted to avoid the stereotypical feminine colours such as pinks and purples, however without these it was difficult to make it obvious the brand was for females.

Experimenting colours using my logo design and slogan designs.

Changing/Experimenting with colours on my first draft of my website.

However I have decided, after gathering feedback from design students on my course, friends at home and my workshop tutor, I have created a colour swatch which includes all six colours I will be using in my package identity.

COLOUR REPRESENTATIONS/MEANINGS:

Blue shades connote health, tranquillity and water. White connotes hygiene, cleanliness and goodness. Green shades are associated with nature and growth.

These representations combined will implicate that this gym is a relaxing and positive place for women to work out comfortably.

Final Poster Design

December 4, 2015 Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Project Two, Reflection Final Work, Project Two, reflection

The poster was how I envisioned it; minimalistic yet effective.

However, I wish I was able to create the small cartoon figures and cartoon Einstein myself, but after an attempt on Photoshop I thought best not as I wanted my work to look as professional as possible and didn’t want to ruin it with a rubbish drawing.