Monday, 26 May 2014

REVIEW OF FINAL MAJOR PROJECT (FMP)

REVIEW OF FINAL MAJOR PROJECT (FMP)


Student Name: Shantelle Hyslop           Pathway: Fashion & Textiles (Fashion Promotion)

Final Major Project Title: Creativity is the Cure


The final outcome of my project is a self-help book called ‘Creativity is the Cure’. The theme of the book is to express how to relieve you from everyday stress through creativity. Alongside the book I also made two posters and stickers as a promotional product. My final outcome slightly differs from my original project proposal. I originally stated I wanted to make a zine that focused on Artists with mental illnesses and how they dealt with their mental illness. I also wanted the zine to inform readers on mental illness and how to prevent/deal with it. I created a book instead of a zine as I felt it would look better and I have never made a book whereas I have created a zine before.

I have used my sketchbook and blog as a method to show my recordings. By using my sketchbook and blog it has allowed me to go back on the work I did and help me clearly see what the next step I could take into expanding my project.

The targets I have met from my original FMP plan are using internet and library research, visiting galleries and museums, clearly presenting my work in my sketchbook, having a book full of developed collages, showing development in Photoshop, knowing what format my final piece will be.

Developments that contributed to my final outcome has been working on loose sheets rather than a sketchbook. I feel as though working on loose sheets has helped me amplify my work and not feel restrained to a sketchbook. This development has then helped me know what the visual side of my project could expand from. I also think that visiting the bookshop, Foyles has contributed to my development as I was able to see what type of books are currently in the market and acknowledge the many different book styles.

I think one of the best pieces of advice I received from group review was to work on A3 loose sheets as it will help me expand my work and not restrict me to work to a certain amount of pages. As I was working in an A4 sketchbook at the beginning of the project I feel I was not recording as much as I could have been doing after the research stage. Working on loose sheets was better for recording my work and helping me develop and reorganise work. Another piece of helpful advice was to not focus my work on an Artist and their style too much and to do what I want in the sense of what I wanted to express. I feel as though I was too focused on referencing artists, that I was not making my project personal which I think was missing from my project. However, I still did reference artists but demonstrated it in my own work instead.

If I had to redo this project again I think I would have been stricter on how much research I needed to do and what I would actually use in the end. I think I may have collected too much research that I knew I would probably not use. However, sometimes that is the point of research and progress as it allows me what to pick out what I need to develop on. I also think I would not focus on what other people wanted me to do and just focus on what I wanted to do. This is because at the beginning of the project I was being suggested an array of things that were not helpful and just resulted in me being endlessly confused. By acknowledging these faults it will help me in future courses and careers by being more focused on my research and not centring my thoughts on other opinions all the time.  


Thursday, 22 May 2014

FMP - Sticker Display

The sticker display is pretty much the same design as my title page, I just changed the text to suit. I set the display to a A3 which is not big enough to hold all the stickers but I didn't want the display to big and thought I could always places stickers around the board.

Before I was thinking of attaching the sticker display to my final display board but then thought it wouldn't be sensible idea as the board may not be stable enough when people help themselves to the stickers. So I decided to mount my sticker display on mounting board for the extra sturdiness and to to place it on the table alongside my book as it is easier to access them and it will be not risk of my board falling over or getting damaged.

This is my process of making the display:







This is the printed product with the sticker placed on it:


Saturday, 17 May 2014

FMP - Viewing Final Book and Stickers

My final book and stickers arrived on Friday so this is a quick review on them. 

The stickers printed great, the colours also look good except the lilac/blue one is a tiny bit dark which makes it harder to read the text. I don't really like the book the stickers came in as the green doesn't match my colour scheme. So I need to come up with a better way to present them which should be easy as they are just stapled together. At the moment I'm thinking of having a clear perspex with a sign to say 'help yourself' or creating a background to pin them onto.

I'm pleased with my book but not chuffed. The grey linen cover is a bit different than I expected it to be. The cover is quite grainy which is why I had to scrap the idea of printing my dust cover onto acetate as it was hard to see the transparent bits clearly. The paper of the book is printed onto a good quality paper however I regret printing onto gloss paper as I feel it makes the pages look like gloss photograph paper rather than a gloss page book. I was thinking of returning the book and getting it reprinted onto matte paper but was worried about time, however, the gloss pages have grown on me. The colours have also been printed a bit darker than I was expecting. I knew the colours would vary but the Albelli website stated the pages would print a bit clearer due with gloss which was what was I hoping for but obviously didn't happen. 

These are my stickers:





This is my book (pictured a couple of pages):







Thursday, 15 May 2014

FMP - Axing the Animation

On a separate note I have decide to not do my animation as I just don't think it will work and be to the standard that I am happy to show. I think I needed better time management when creating it and to have had someone to teach me how to make a good animation. The animation that I created was very basic and I feel as though it through it. I don't think it is the end of the world of not doing it as it was just a extra last minute project. I feel as though by not doing it won't affect my project in a negative way it just would have been a great extra feature.

I will see if I can upload the animation, where I left it as next week.

FMP - Final Board Designs

We had a group talk about final stuff today, I took notes and started drawing board designs for my final boards:




For my final board I want to display my book, stickers and 2 posters. I'm not sure if a table is supplied to rest my book on so I came up with a backup plan of hanging it by a piece of string alongside with the sticker book. I have also had the idea of 'pinning' my posters up with either my stickers or with print out hands. On Monday I will have my final display plan after going over it with Dan.

Edit:
After my stickers came I realised i needed to figure out a new way to present my sticker I don't like the book my stickers came in. Also after thinking it would be clearer to the viewer to present the sticker in a different way. 

This a some of the plans i'm planning on displaying my stickers: 



FMP - Photoshop Development - Final Second Poster

Here is me creating and developing the second poster. I wanted this poster to match my first one so I decided to use the same colour for the background but just darken it a bit. I also wanted to do the same font but just keep it text (in a similar style to Barbara Kruger). I also played around with adding my handwriting to make it personal but it didn't really look good so I decided to add some the triangle patterns I drew earlier own in the project as it was still a personal touch.











FMP - Final Stuff and Last Minuet Errors

Today my aim was to print of my dust cover designs, finish my posters and show Dan my work up to this point.

I printed the dust cover designs onto acetate and in the pictures show the result against different colour backgrounds. I forgot to print the designs on the flip side so the shiny side was showing. It was notable that the printer changed the colours which I was worried about before.



I decided to wait till I got home to see what the colours would look like against the actual book cover. The book cover is a lot more grainy than I was expecting (I will go into detail in the next post). As you can see the acetate still doesn't look so great against the book cover. I finally chose to go with the pink cover and it is evident that the pink does not show clearly on the acetate and the the font is hard to read. So from the result of this observation I've decided to print on the gloss paper in Uni instead for a better result.

Green, blue and black print dust cover against book cover

Pink and black acetate dust cover against book cover
I've decided to use this as my final dust cover as after showing it to Dan he said he liked it and that it was good that it wasn't to busy but still showed my personality through, which I agree with. I also decide to keep the colour pink as I think it will work well with my final posters and is more inviting than black.

My final chosen dust cover which will be printed on gloss paper

I've decided to just use one of my final posters out of the two I deigned as I felt that having two similar posters was too much. However I decided to create a different style poster to go along with my final poster. I wanted to add a tag line to my final poster but didn't want to take away the simplicity of it so I decided to add the tag line to a separate poster. One of my tutors suggested it should be in the style of Barbara Kruger designs, where the text is the main piece.

Barbara Kruger's Posters for Selfrdiges

After talking to Dan aswell he said I should some of my own handwriting to make it personal again. So I hired out a drawing pad to add the last few details.


These are my new poster styles I created. I started with just the text with the white background int the Kurger style. I decided to move the text to the bottom half of the poster as it coincided well with the other poster. I then added some of my own handwriting and decreasing the opacity but found it didn't really fit will me. I felt that without the handwriting it was a bit empty so I decded to take one of my patterns and add it to my background which felt right to me. I feel as thought the pattern still adds a personal touch as I drew them and it's apparent.



These are my final posters:




My next tasks are to:
  • Make final blog post about final book and stickers
  • Print final posters and dust cover
  • Paper work