Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Jordan Lee

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

• Yes I think it does reflect on my original intentions as I used almost all my ideas from my Flat plans and storyboards, the only thing I changed from them was the amount of pages I was going to use from my flat plans. I then changed the amount of pages when I came to doing my storyboard this was to make it easier for me to finish the book in the amount of time we had and I also think the original amount of pages were too many for the target audience to go through and read. The only big change from the layout and graphics was how I moved the text off most of the pages on to their own separate pages. This did put the page count up but as that was just text I think it was ok to do this because it made my book look more clean and made a easier read for my TA of 2-5 years olds.

This shows the similarities between my flat plans, my original ideas and finished product pages. It clearly shows how much of the flat plan ideas I actually transferred into the main project.

How well have you constructed your images?

• I think my images were constructed well for the style that I was aiming for this was a very simple and bold eye-catching style instead of a highly detailed image with lots of texture and shading. My reason for choosing to do these types of images came down to two things, one being that it’s a kids book and my TA was 2-5 year olds I didn’t want to make it too complex for them to look at as at this age it is the images that you concentrate on.

• My second reason for this simple style is that the time scale in which I had to complete the full 10 pages was very short and I was planning to do a page per day which would have made it difficult to do highly detailed images as some of my Photoshop skills are limited to what I can do in a amount of time. I think if I had twice as much time I might be able to improve certain aspects from my book there is some pages that I think lacked professional quality that I could have spent more time on. In my first page I had a nice clean look to it but on to the 3rd page my quality dropped and I think I could have transferred some of the things I used in the first page to this page, some of these things might have been by changing the angle in which we are looking at the family, I feel that in the first page it worked really well looking at them from the front because it showed off more of the detailing and shadowing that I implemented.

These pages show a big difference in change and I think the image on the left could be improved significantly to add more detail and shadowing like the first image.

How well have you used text to anchor your images

• I think I used my text really well and it represented what was happening in the images, If this book was published it would be set on a double paged spread with the text on the right then the images on the left this gives a good flow to read through the text and then to look at the images to show what my text is representing. I also tried to link the text pages with the image pages through colours similar the image in the example I’ve shown I used snowflakes to link with a snowy page these were one of my favourite combinations of pages as they linked well and this would also make the book easier to understand for younger children.

Example from my book of two of the linking pages from text and image pages.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

• Yes I feel my product is suitable. My reasoning's for this is that through planning and then making the final product I tried to really focus on making it simple, the style was very clear and bold for and 2-5 year olds to follow by the pictures and by the big clear text which is easier to read for anybody reading the book. I don’t think this book could be for any other ages as there is a bit too much text for children under 2 and I think it is too simple for children over 5 as this is the stage when they are starting to read more than just following the pictures in a book to tell a story. My book didn’t specifically lean to either genders as I had a equal spread of genders in the book this was to prevent any claims of prejudice coming from my people reading my book. I also didn’t make either gender more heroic as I didn’t want it to be like a stereotypical fairy tale where the male comes to the rescue, all my characters were a bit wimpy and fled from the wolf. I also aimed in the proposal to turn this into a book that could be shown to kids through pre school and nursery and I think I have achieved that.

What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used?

• The techniques that I really liked using in this project was the shape task, I think this worked the best for the style of images that I was trying to achieve which were simple and bold images. I used the shape task for the majority of all the images through out my book I think this made it easier and quicker for if I wanted to change the way something was positioned as I had lots of layers that I could select and change this gave me more freedom and originality compared to using something like rotoscoping.

• I disliked using the rotoscoping for this reason being that it wasn’t original and didn’t give me the freedom to have everything just how I wanted. Even though I disliked it I still used it in my book it was useful for more detailed items like pieces of clothing or props in the book this also showed some variety of other tools I can use.

Two examples of the tools and methods I used. On the first image I used only the shape task method to create the pig but for the tree to get the branches realistic I rotocoped the stalk and branches then used shape tools to do the leaves.

What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks?

• The things I really liked within my project was the way I used a limited and well matched colour palette to keep all the images consistent throughout the book, this just gave it a bit more of a professional look compared to if I just randomly used a range of shades throughout the book.

• I also liked the change I made from my planning and flat plans which was removing the text from the actual image pages and putting it onto a separate page that linked up with the image pages I think this gave a nice flow to the book and didn’t make it look so crammed on one page.

• Things I disliked in my book was the characters, I don’t think that these were the best pieces of work that I could have made as they didn’t have a lot of detail and I could have tried them acting out other movements to add some more variety but in the time I had I think these were sufficient enough to make the book work well.

These are the changes I made to the pages by removing the text, I think this was the most positive change as it added more to the book and also anchored the text to the book a lot nicer than the first time I tried it on the page.

Why did you include the content you used?

• The images I used I picked because my book was based on were going on a bear hunt and I tried to keep the scenarios similar to the ones in the book just with my own touch to them as these were suitable for a kids book but I think the original were going on a bear hunt would have been aimed at a higher audience as their images were more complex. The font I picked was ‘Point free’ I used this because is had a nice flow between letters and was bold which was a good combination in a font for a children's book and it had flicks of some letters which makes it easy for younger children to read. The colours used in my book were all picked to be pleasing to look at I tried to pick pastel colours and realistic shades to give it some realism even though I was trying to making it very simple. I think this worked and I really liked how most of the pages came out because I tried to give them a touch of realism.

A example of ‘Point free’ the text I used throughout my book for a easy read for children.

What signs, symbols or codes have your used in your work?

• Some signs that have been used in my work is in page 12 when the family enter the cave I have used dark colours to represent the cave but also to create a dark scary space that is intimidating to the pigs and adds a sense of mystery and suspense into my story. In page 16 in my pigs house I used nice bright colours that felt warm and homely to show I sign in my work that this is a place of safety and a secure place where these pigs live.

• In my character designs you can see clear signs of their ages and who they are to the family of pigs without me even mentioning who they are in the book. My dad pig was the clearest representation as he wore some old fashioned clothes and had a beard, this shows that he is one of the older ones in the family he was also leading the family a lot of the way through the obstacles to also show his maturity of testing things first to make sure they were safe. The son in the book just wears a basic shirt and that’s it, I think this shows a clear difference between the ages.

• I also showed a clear difference between the ages of the female characters in my story and also the gender difference between the male characters I gave the girls longer her which you would stereotypically link with females so even from the shots where you don’t see their face you naturally see the difference between the genders. I dressed them in dresses and stereotypically feminine colours to also highlight the difference between the characters as the male characters were put in masculine colours that were quite plain and drab.

This shows the signs and symbols discussed in the last page. The clear differences andStereotypically used colours and character representations.

What representations can be found in your work?

• Although in my book it doesn’t feature any humans the family of pigs resemble a very stereotypical human family with a dad, mum, daughter and son with a clear difference between the genders and ages for each character as I would dress the mum and dad different to the children and they would have certain different features and also the size difference between the pigs.

• As for religion I didn’t include any because I didn’t want to seem bias to any other religions if I just picked one and also I would find it difficult to write a religion into my book as I just followed the same original story which didn’t have much of a personal following of the family it just followed their adventure on a wolf hunt.

What style have you employed in your products?

• A big influence to my style that I used for this was Peppa Pig as this show used a very simplistic and bold type of graphics this show is highly popular to children that are in my target audience so this style was nice to base my graphics on. In the programme they made the family of pigs similar to a very stereotypical human family. This included a mum, dad, son and daughter, I really liked this idea because it gives more variety to gender and ages into my story so that I wont seem bias to a certain gender or age. I also chose this style because I liked it personally over a more detailed style of graphics, I think the bold bright colours and smooth clean images made the book pleasing to look at and in some ways looked more professional than a hand drawn version of the book.

These Images show the similaritiesin the families and how I tried to usea style similar.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and planning

• I think a lot of the planning we did were strengths rather than weaknesses. The schedule really helped me to get a idea of how to map out my time and how to use my time effectively throughout the project, I think I have succeeded this project on time due to the schedule.

• One of the main weaknesses in my planning I think was my proposal I feel like it could have been more detailed and that I could have built up on the audience that I was making my book for as it was a limited description into who they were.

• I didn’t really ever refer back to my mood boards and mind maps this may have been because they weren't very detailed and didn’t show a he range of ideas but It could have been because I always had a idea of what I was wanting to recreate and how I was going to go about doing it.

These are come of the pieces that I feel I could have improved on to help my ideas throughout production with the key one being the audience profile needing to be improved due to the low detail.

Historical and cultural context

• Other products similar to this is ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’. As this was a fairly recent book compared to some other more traditional books there hasn’t been any remakes that I have found yet on the internet. I think it was a good book to base my book off as I had the freedom to be totally original with it as there isn't any other remakes out there. I think the way I remade the book was a nice change as I completely changed the style of illustrations compared to the original hand drawn and oil painted images. I changed the characters in my book to pigs and a wolf this gave my book more of a traditional feel to it as pigs and wolfs are widely recognised as fairy tale characters and have a sort of rivalry in other children books, this made it a good and understandable change to the book.

Peer Feedback

• Summarise peer feedback and discuss– Responses you agree with– Responses you disagree with