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.