Exam Evaluation Questions

IDEAS & CONCEPTS: 
How have your ideas changed over the course of the project? Explain your initial ideas and original intentions explaining how they have developed over time, making sure that you LINK THIS BACK TO THE EXAM THEME AND EXPLAIN HOW YOUR IDEAS REFLECT THE THEME OF INSIDE, OUTSIDE, IN-BETWEEN?

The exam brief was pretty simple 'Inside, Outside and Inbetween', from the three initial briefs we were given I chose book jacket brief. The main object to this brief was to create a series of book jacket covers for a series of books. My books were Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. To begin with my first initial idea my ideas haven't really changed since the beginning only progressing and developing them forward to the final product. From the very start I always wanted to try and recreate a silhouette or double exposure image of a main part of the books I was going to make the book jacket for, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Over time I have developed the understanding of how to refine a technique. I feel that the technique that I have used relates to the theme perfectly in the way that you're looking inside an object that has something that shouldn't be there. Also the design is very eye-catching that it makes you want to look inside to see what the story is about. 

PHOTOGRAPHER INSPIRATION: 

Discuss how your ideas have been influenced by key photographers or artists you have looked at. Did the exhibition trip inspire your ideas at all? Did you find any photographers that took your work on a totally different path? WHICH PHOTOGRAPHER INSPIRED YOUR FINAL PIECE THE MOST?

Throughout this project I have found that Rowan Stocks-Moore have been the biggest inspiration towards me in the way that his designs are so unique and eye-catching, I felt that he was a massive part to play on what technique to develop further into the actual exam. I found the exhibition trip really good, and help me create some experiments of how to make a collage, but I felt that what I wanted to create being inspired by Stocks-Moore didn't really fit within the collage theme. However, another designer that I looked into with in the last stages of the exam preparation was John Gall. He created a book cover for a well known book 'Sweet Bird of Youth', using an outline of a bird to display a young girl in the centre of it. This was my decision to use people as the characters of the stories, instead of to different objects in the book. Stocks-Moore and Gall were my main influences.

EXPERIMENTATION & DEVELOPMENT: 

How did the different experiments that you did throughout the project influence your ideas and final piece? 

I experimented with a lot of experiments without this project included mixed media designs, simple illustrations, collages and clipping masks/double exposure. I feel that they experiment with the different techniques worked well with the books but I believed that the clipping mask and the double exposure experiment combined together made the books seem different and unusual to look at, which made it more eye-catching.The development that I took during this process has been really good, making a lot of changes that I believe have worked really well. 

CONCLUSION: 

Comment on your overall thoughts about the project. Did you find the exam theme easy / difficult? Did you enjoy working on your prep work? Do you think you will be pleased with your final outcome when it is complete?

Overall I believe that the exam theme was really workable, in the sense that you could basically link any series of books, or illustrations or text to the theme and it would work well. I enjoyed some of the prep work that I did for the them because it meant that I could experiment with lots of different materials, techniques either digital or handmade. I think that I will be please with my final outcome because of the amount of preparation that I have put into taking the photographs, creating the text to finally get a end product that I feel really works with the exam theme of 'Inside, Outside and Inbetween'. 

Final Outcome

Here are my final designs for the Book Jacket brief of Inside, Outside & Inbetween.

Hopefully these chosen books and the technique I have used work well together to describe what the fairy tale is about in the book. Also the colours, the objects and photographs have really compensated well with the books, and will hopefully catch people's attention to look and read the books.

CINDERELLA

RAPUNZEL

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

SLEEPING BEAUTY

SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARFS

Process

Double Exposure/Clipping Mask

To start the final outcome for the exam theme, I firstly collected some photographs that I previously took, that related to my chosen books. As you can see all of the images are connected to each individual story in their own way. I took all of these photographs using a digital SLR camera, which is of high quality.    

Once I had the images that I wanted, I printed out all of the pictures that I need and I started to trace them. Once I had traced the images with a black pen I scanned them into Adobe Illustrator to them make them more adaptable to work with in Photoshop. The reason why I traced the images was because I wanted to create an outline of a particular object that suited the story. For example the bed represents Sleeping Beauty.            

Here are the photographs that I used to create the character in story.

I chose to be the characher in all of the stories becasue I felt that it would be more effective and more personal if I were in the photographs myself. As you can see, each photo has the name of the character I was trying to portray, and even has some of the main objects in the image as well.   

Here you can see the final double exposure outcome with the correct object linking towards them. I have also added a colour background to make the picture stand out more. 

Silhouette

As an additional image to the book jacket, I wanted to put in another object but turn it into a silhouette so it was just a black image.  The images above are the originals that I took myself again with a digital SLR camera. 

How I created these images was by selecting the pen tool on photoshop and drawing around the existing pictures to create a black image. I feel this would sit really nicely at the back of the book with the summary of the tale. 
  

Text

Here is my own typeface that I created on the iPad using the app iFontmaker. I felt that using my own handmade digital text would really work well with the stories, because the writing almost looks childlike and the books are aimed for children.

Evaluation of Prep Work

Interpreting the theme
The exam theme was called 'Inside, Outside and Inbetween'. I interpreted by looking at three different briefs that I could possible chose from. Typography, Illustration or Book Jacket. Typography was about using the 3 topic words and their synonyms. Illustrations brief was looking drawing scenes from either Alice through the Looking-Glass or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Finally the book-jackets was to create a cover for a selection of books by the same author. After looking through the three briefs I finally chose the Book Jacket brief.  

My final piece will relate to the theme by showing on the book cover what is inside the book, and basically gives you a little inkling to what the story is about. The books I have chosen to design the cover for is Brother's Grimm fairy tales; Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty. 

Recording observations
The methods that that I used to record my observations using both primary and secondary sources has been on my blog for mostly my digital experiments and my sketch-book for my practical and hand made work.

Idea development
I had 3 ideas that I could possible use for my final outcome. Double exposure, Mixed media and illustrations. The double exposure would mean having to parts of the story combined together. Secondly the mixed media was to have an image of someone having one side being a photo and the other a drawing. And the illustration of an object on its own, making very minimalist.

After a lot of trail and error I finally decided to pursue with developing the double exposure more because I feel it would benefit the chosen books. I feel that looking at different examples of Rowan Stocks-Moore's work I found that his work was really inspiring and I feel that I can relate to his work the most. 



Here to the left is my interpretation of Rowan Stocks-Moore's work. How I created this image by making an outline of a photograph of shoes and made that into the top layer of the design to show an outline of what will be shown underneath. I also added a photo from the internet (for final outcome I will be using photographs taken by me) of person that kind of resembled on of the main characters in one of my chosen books; Cinderella. After arranging the clipping mask exposure onto the page, I made the background blue to resemble the colour that everyone recognises as that character. 

Materials, Techniques and Processes.
The materials that I have used in my sketchbook have been working with different handmade fonts with mediums such as pens, charcoal etc. Another technique that I have used in my sketchbook, has been observational drawings that I have develop my skills on using lots of objects to draw from. Also I have worked with many digital experiments that have help me with developing skills of how to approach the topic.  

The techniques that used throughout the process of this topic has been mainly improving on my observational drawings, by gradually improving on the skills to make them look more realistic. From looking at the artist, photographs and designers that I have improved on my digital skills hoping to be to design and create my work as good as them. 

I had a few problems with the quality of photographs that I took to start of with helping me draw the objects. And I also had a few problems with working with photoshop to get the possible outcome of experiments. 

Looking at the artists that had inspired me, I felt that I had to be more ambitious with my ideas, however I  wanted to keep the style that I already had in my head, which was minimalistic.

Influences

Rowan Stocks-Moore & John Gall

Rowan Stocks-Moore and John Gall have been really inspirational towards the way I have come to my final decision. Firstly my first inspiration was Stocks-Moore because of how minimalist his way of working was, it is clean and up to scratch with looking like an actual cover for the book. I then looked at John Gall work and this image of the book 'Sweet Bird of Youth', using a silhouette with a photograph into the outline of the bird. I feel that after looking at his work, I have been really inspired by his work as i believe it will work really well with my chosen books.   

The most important image that I really have been inspired by has been the one above of John Gall's work. I feel that his work has really benefited my final ideas for my outcome. With the different techniques that I have experimented with his work has been the most inspiring.  

Final Piece
For my final piece I will be designing five book jackets for Brothers Grimm fairy tales; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. I will be using a digital technique, which is a combination between double exposure and clipping masks. I will also be making my typeface using the iPad instead of using an already made font.     

The narrative to my final work is to combine characters and object together that are the main parts to stories being on the front cover, drawing you into the read the book. 

The technique i will be using will be inspired by John Gall and Rowan Stocks Moore, using clipping mask and double exposure techniques. I hope it works really well with my chosen books. 

Mock up of my final outcome.

After looking at many techniques and designers, I have finally come to the conclusion of my book cover is to have a double exposure / clipping mask effect. I feel this will benefit my chosen books as the stories are detailed enough to get straight to the point, which is what I want my cover to do. Get straight to the point by explaining what is happening in the book. I like this minimalist approach hope that it really works with the Brothers Grimm books.   

SKETCH

Here is a rough sketch of how I hope and plan my final five books will look like. With this particular sketch of the story Cinderella; I want to capture the main objects or characters that are in the story to try and make a clipping mask or a double exposure that involves two parts of the story that is very prominent. With a few annotations added and the things that I will do to the background, and where I will place the photos and the text. I also worked out the measurements that the jacket needs to be to fit all five books, making the calculation width wise more bigger making sure the design fits perfectly. I feel working within a minimalist way, they will work really well with the books as the stories are fairy tales and are aimed at children of a young age.  

DIGITAL

After the sketch that I drew for one of the books. I took it upon myself to design a digital version of how I vision my work to look like. I started off by opening Adobe Photoshop and opening a document that would be a similar size for the jackets to cover the book. After that I made the background blue and uploaded a bar code and the logo of the book company that published the edition of the Grimm Brothers books, Penguin. What I did next was uploaded my experiment of the Double Exposure technique, inspired by Rown Stocks-Moore, to be my prototype design. Placing the image in the correct position that I thought would work well on the font cover of the jacket. Next, I used a typeface that I made on iFontmaker, to use as the title on the cover, spine and for the blurb on the back on the jacket, which tells you a little bit about the book itself. Finally, I felt that the back of the jacket-cover looked a little bit bare, so I made a silhouette of another object that is a really important part of the story. By making the object of the clock black, it adds to the minimalist theme of the design and technique.