Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//OUGD203 Self Evaluation.

My finalised, written self evaluation for the OUGD203 Design Practice II module, reflecting upon my design experience throughout the past months, my strengths, weaknesses and things to improve upon for my future modules and project concepts and design outcomes.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Finalised design boards.

The finalised design boards for my Product/Range/Distribution brief, with completed images, notation and explanation of the brief.

Design Practice II//YCN/Graze//My Responsibilities//Design Boards.

Again, re-publishing the design boards I produced at the end of the Design Practice II/YCN Collaborative brief which demonstrate my own personal responsibilities throughout the live brief project.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution Self Evaluation.

A full, written evaluation for the Product/Range/Distribution project within the OUGD203 Design Practice II brief, reflecting upon my strengths, weakness, and things to improve upon in the future.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Final Revisited Brief.

The finalised, revised and written brief for my submission of the Product/Range/Distribution project within the OUGD203 Design Practice II module, taking my current product outcomes into consideration and reviewing what I have achieved throughout the project.

BRIEF

Create a reading scheme to be promoted and run by schools throughout the United Kingdom entitled '200 Books 200 Schools', (from the Puffin publishing house) whereupon 200 selected schools receive books and reading packs to be given to 9-11 years old (for each month of the academic year) to encourage and promote classic children's books and encouraging independent reading.

BACKGROUND//CONSIDERATIONS

Consider my target audience and the appropriateness of designs and communication for both this age group (schoolchildren aged 9-11) and their parents, who are encouraged to support the reading scheme.

Research the history and visual communication of Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimms (the story selected for the first month, and for which promotional media will be produced), and what will most effectively engage the chosen audience.

Research existing Graphic Design and Illustrative designs for children in a variety of contexts to find the most appropriate style, methods, and design outcomes.

MANDATORY REQUIREMENTS

Produce an extensive body of research into the history of The Fairy Tales of the Brother's Grimm, and the illustrative communication of their work throughout the past 200 years (of which the reading scheme '200 Books 200 Schools' was inspired).

Produce an extensive range of design developments, potential outcomes and experimentation with various forms of design media such as packaging, illustration and typographic design.

Produce a range of design outcomes to inform and persuade and encourage the target audience to keep reading with fun incentives (such as free gifts through printed media) and the fundamental encouragement to let their knowledge and capabilities grow. 

DELIVERABLES

Produce a range of printed media to be presented within a reading progress pack such as a printed publication, audio book (for the visually impaired), progress planner and free bookmark. I will propose that for each academic month a new series of printed media is produced and distributed, but in the case of this project, only producing the range for 'Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm', which will be proposed as the first book within the range, distributed to schoolchildren (in the selected 200 schools throughout the United Kingdom) in September 2012.

Produce promotional advertising design for the reading scheme in both print-based and screen-based formats.

STUDIO DEADLINE

OUGD203 FINAL CRIT// Wednesday 16th May

MODULE DEADLINE

Friday 25th May 2012, 1-2PM

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Web-base design.

Unfortunately, again, due to time constraints, I haven't been able to find time to produce a mock up web design page, which is something I'm particularly disappointed about, as I felt it was a key resource, and something that was really needed within the brief.

Instead, to show some sign of progression, I designed a couple of proposed interface designs for the web blog (which, as proposed, would be www.puffin.com/200books) which show the tagline 'Discover the magic of reading' fading out, as clouds draw in and the information and resource media is shown on the web page. 

I also created a quick mock up design for a web page hyperlink for the existing puffin homepage to act as a hyperlink onto the puffin web blog. For this, I used the typeface Georgia (as opposed to the serif typeface, Cardiff, which I used as body copy) as this is a web safe font.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Photographs to edit for final boards.

Photographs taken this morning ready to edit for my design boards for module submission later on today. Need to adjust the colour balance, and cropping of the images (taking pictures in my bedroom I may as well be taking pictures in a cave...) as well as potentially cloning and tidying up some of my produced outcomes- such as the inner margin of the book shown in the close up, which, admittedly, was produced really quickly, and, ordinarily, twenty-four hours should be waited after first pressing the cover onto a perfect bound book. I had half an hour. Whoops. Time for some Photoshop trickery.

Despite unfortunately not having the time to design and print all of my illustrations for my book/editorial design, I was really pleased with the brilliant white bulky newsprint stock, which created a great balance of good colour reproduction and print along with a slightly grainy texture which suits the content and themes of the stories, with an often dark or sinister undertone, which, again, I tried to replicate in the use of darker tones within my colour palette in balance with the pastel blue and light greys on the cover design.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Unfinished Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm Publication.

The unfinished design for the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm publication that I put together as part of the 200 Books 200 School s nationwide Puffin (publishing house) reading scheme.


Again, quite disappointed that I didn't complete the illustrations throughout the book (where the white pages are shown), but still feel that the book itself reflects time and effort put into the design process- even if on a low-key level such as mass-produced paper back editions, after eight hours of typing up the stories, consideration for type, layout and overall structure of the body copy.
Despite not fulfilling all that I wanted to with the book, I still feel as though I have learnt something from this design process, and it is certainly something I would like to work upon, and, when possible, develop in the future.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Progress report book.

Due to time constraints, I also, very frustratingly won't be able to design, print and bind the progress report book.


Really angry at myself for not managing to get this completed on time.
Really not anticipating great feedback and grades.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Illustative Designs.

Very, very frustratingly, and unfortunately, due to time constraints, I won't be able to complete my design outcomes and products that I have proposed within my brief. Really disappointed with myself that I haven't been able to manage my time more effectively and produce the work that I aspired to.
I understand that I may have been a little ambitious with my work load, but probably didn't use my time half as effectively as I should have done.


Here, I have blogged some of the illustrations and designs I had been working on but just didn't get time to finish to add to my publication. I feel that I spent far too long being a perfectionist over tiny design details (such as the bezier curves on the wolf, bottom image) and focused too highly on these production values without looking at the bigger picture, and, as a result, have failed to achieve what I initially set out to do. I will still print and bind the book, leaving blank pages where the images should have been. Really, really disappointed that I only managed to get a (pretty pathetic) one picture finalised- and definitely a lesson for me to learn from for next time.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Poster Designs.

Working on designs for a promotional poster for the Grimm's Fairy Tales September 2012 200 Books 200 Schools reading scheme promotion. At first, I considered creating a design which focused purely on the branding of the entire scheme, but felt that having an individual poster for each of the monthly book releases, which would appropriately suit the redesign of the reading progress packs, book covers, bookmarks, etc. 

I decided to purchase some stock photos, as opposed to depending upon internet searches. For me, this is something I want to get used to for legal purposes, and to start developing my professional practice in terms of fair usage of images online, and, surprisingly, it was quite good value for money, with around 6 images for £11 (15 credits) all sized to around A5 scale (dimensions appropriate to the original photograph resolution, and how it has been scaled down).


Credits are shown for the images used are as below:

BILLBOARD ADVERTISING

Image credit:  olechowski / 123RF Stock Photo

CLASSROOM WITH CLOCK

Image credit:  archidea / 123RF Stock Photo

CLOSE UP APPLE CLASSROOM

Image credit: teresaterra / 123RF Stock Photo 

APPLE PRODUCTS

Image credit: morfeo86ts / 123RF Stock Photo 

MAC 

Image credit: manaemedia / 123RF Stock Photo

In my original quick drawings and very primitive ideas for potential poster designs, whilst still using my black and white colour palette, the castle illustration was still strongly featured within my designs. Again, for consistency (and a lack of time, to some degree) I decided to stick to this design idea, and perhaps make just a few small changes to create the promotional poster design for both classroom and library environments as well as outdoors by school bus stops to attract the attentions of parents with a URL link onto the puffin website for further details. I wanted to leave the information on the poster minimal, and slightly vague so it could be posted out before the 200 Books scheme kicked off to add a little curiosity and anticipation for the event.


In a simple context, I wanted to evoke the excitement of reading and felt that magic would be appopriate to the subject matter, but in these tradition, classic tales I wasn't sure if the wording was appropriate (magic isn't really discussed in the original tales, but fantastical things happen), and thought of using the word 'enchanted' instead, though this felt a little elaborate, so I decided to keep it simple with the tagline, 'Discover the magic of reading'.

Again, kept very simple, but hopefully eye-catching and engaging enough as a poster design for a classroom/school environment in which I am proposing it would be. Through the classroom/school posters I researched (see my Design Context blog), the posters were all generally quite minimal, so I have kept to this as much as possible, with limited text and consistency of the product design range.

Below: Images Photoshopped into a classroom environment as well as an outside (school) bus shell advert, ready to be displayed on my design boards for module submission.

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Puffin 200 Books Twitter page.

To open up the communication and promotion of the Puffin 200 Books 200 Schools campaign, as well as creating an online forum for parents to get all the information about the reading scheme, I also wanted to create other ways to promote it, to encourage people to learn about the scheme before it is introduced in September and throughout the following year, and, potentially, gaining enough momentum and support for it to be carried out throughout more schools in the United Kingdom and potentially become a national reading scheme after seeing the benefits from the encouraged reading sessions and independent learning.

Again, if I were designing for the entire range of monthly publications from September- July, I would suggest that the logo colours (potentially) are edited, along with the pattern image on the background of the Twitter page, but, in this scenario, I have once again kept the design consistent to the rest of the products within the Grimms Fairy Tale range with the cloud repeat patterns and #738CA2 slate blue logo, adapting the background and links to match the colour for a more personalised page. 

Quite happy with the results, and a good start in proposing that the message is communicated outside of direct online media. Now to get started on some of the web blog/forum designs.