MAISIE MOLONEY

Throughout this unit I have done a lot of research, the parts that I found the most useful which motivated my design decisions the most was doing the image testing. This was a long process for me and took up a lot of my research time, looking into a range of different styles of illustration and testing them out in my own way and I eventually managed to develop a style that I felt suited the book. This was an important process because it helped me learn different methods of illustrating and I feel that I researched as much as I could before deciding on a style so that I could make a fully informed decision. Which in the end paid off because I felt happier with my designs.

 My project underwent lots of changes throughout the unit at the beginning of the unit the major changes I made was changing my target audience to adults as well as changing the idea of the book to having a narrative. This unit in particular was more challenging because of the changes everybody had to make due to the Corona virus. I had to make sure that all of my work could be accessed digitally for the digital hand in which was different and felt quite strange.

 I think that I did my best to manage my time well throughout the unit. At the start of the unit I feel that I was doing really well and was on top of all of my work, keeping up to date with my process book, blog and sketchbook because I had a routine by going into university every morning and worked on my project throughout the day. After we couldn’t use the university anymore I went back home and it was a little more difficult to keep to that routine because of all of the other things that were going on and not having a separate place to go to do work was challenging but I feel that I have done well to get all of my work finished in time.

 I think that responded to feedback given to me well from my tutorials. Although it may have taken me longer agree with some of the suggestions I still took them on and did the research and tests to see how they would work for my project and some of them were successful. For example using the more contemporary style of illustration was not my first choice but as I experimented and tested the style and made it more my own it ended up working well for my project.

 I would like to do more experiments with paper engineering and paper art in the future as I find it really enjoyable to do. Although this is my last unit I will continue to explore this subject area and hopefully gain more experience with it. As well as this I would love to do more book making, experimenting with different types of papers and materials to create unique books. I have ideas for new projects that would involve paper engineering and book making that I intend to do in my spare time as mini projects.

 From this study I have learned a lot of different things. I did a lot of research into paper engineering and illustration so I found a lot of different techniques and styles that I tried out and can use in future projects. I also learnt a lot about folklore whilst researching for the book, which is not VisCom related but I enjoyed it a lot and learnt a lot of new things.

I used the pen tool on illustrator to sketch out my name (moloney) and then added in the word design in a sans serif font to make it feel more contemporary. I chose this colour scheme because green is my favourite colour so i feel that it represents me.

i stuck to a simple layout for my business card design, using the logo and colour scheme on the front with my practices along the bottom so that people can get a clear idea of what i can do.

The back of the card has a white background so that the text is easy to read. I used the same typeface as on my logo to keep it consistent and added the logo into the corner to reinforce my identity. I have removed the email and phone number from this image but it is on the actual business card.

The cover is a minimalistic mix of contemporary and traditional design to replicate the style of the illustrations inside the book.  

In my last tutorial it was recommended that I post this pop-up book that I made earlier in the year to show my ability and what I am capable of. This was a one week project and I produced this pop-up book to educate children on the history of Halloween. Although I would have liked to take new photos of it for my portfolio these are the only images I have because the physical book is in Bournemouth. (Some of the text on these mock-ups is slightly tilted, they are not tilted in the physical book, this is a quick mock-up that i did months ago and didn't realise it wasn’t straight at the time and I would have changed it if i had photos of the book instead of just these mock-ups)

https://mockups-design.com/download-in-progress/?dlm-dp-dl=3393

 I did a mock-up of the cove of the book to show how it might look on a hardback cover. I have not done photoshop mock-ups of the spreads inside the book because the photos I would have to use have streaks down them because of the printer and it would not show how they’re supposed to look properly.

Because of the coronavirus I have had to make a lot of changes to my work and I feel that it is not completed to the standard that it could have been if everything were normal. I wanted to make a few points to explain why some things have been produced the way that they have just so that it’s clear that this is not my usual standard of work.

When the UK went into lockdown I was in Swindon visiting people and was only supposed to be there for a few days and then make my way back to Bournemouth. As soon as the lockdown happened my family wanted me back in Birmingham so I travelled straight to there from Swindon and was not able to pick up extra things back in Bournemouth that I needed for my work. Luckily, I had taken a lot of my work with me to Swindon so I had the essential bits like my laptop, sketchbook and some paper and pends etc..

I needed a space to work when I got home and the only place that had a surface big enough for me to be able to do all of my image testing, printing and mock-ups where I wouldn’t be in the way was in the shed in my dad’s art studio. But, because it hasn’t been used in a very long time it was full of stuff and needed to be cleared out and cleaned so that I had a space to work which took a little time that should have been spent working on my project.

Although the hand in has been changed to all digital this was quite difficult for me because it was a pop-up book it still needed to be made physically in order to show how it looks as a physical object. This became a bit of an issue because the only printer that I had available to me at home does not print very good quality and leaves lines down everything as well as only printing on to A4 paper rather than A3 card which is what I should have been printing on.

I tried to solve these issues best as I could by backing the paper print outs onto card to try and make them more sturdy but the mock-ups still didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to as the paper would crease, curl or not hold it’s shape very well. As well as this, because the mock-ups had to be scaled down some of the illustrations were really small which made them more difficult to cut out by hand and I only had a limited amount of scalpel blades to use.

i did test prints of the cover scaled down so that i could print it on my home printer. The quality is bad so there are lined across the print and it was hard to tell if the type was the right size because it had been scaled down so in reality it would be bigger. Although the images don’t seem as though the text is clear, in person i found it comfortable to read the blurb on the back at this size.

Test Print 1:

I felt that the title and the house illustration looked a little bit too small and squashed together. but I was happy with the back and spine.

Test Print 2:

I made the title a little bigger along with the illustration but when i printed it out i think that there was too much of a gap in between the house and the title and it looked a little bit big.

Test Print 3:

I made the house illustration smaller and brought it closer to the title as well as moving the title down slightly so that i was more in line with the back of the cover. I am happy with how the cover is looking now.

I tried adding in the bucket of water outlines but it was too hard to see and I didnt really like how the shape of the illustration fits on the page.

i tried adding the house illustrations and re positioned and resized it until i was happy with how it looked.] 

i like how this illustration looks on the cover because the house fits in with the colours well and again showing the house subtly sets the scene of the story.

I used the same typeface for the blurb (oxford) that was used as the body text inside. To break up the text more I added in a bolder section in the font Core Sans G which helps to make it feel more contemporary. 

The text was placed onto the green background in white but because the text is so fine i thought it looked a little difficult to read.

I then placed the text into a white box and changed the colour to black and green for the bold part which does help to make it easier to read but I feel like the first version looks better. 

i tried making the font a size bigger which i think helped.

when converted to a PDF it looks easier to read. Although my printer is bad so it will make it difficult to tell, I will print this off to see is it is easy enough to read for an adult audience.

Download from here:

<a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/background">Background vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com</a>

i decided to add a texture to my background to make it a little more interesting to look at. I downloaded a free illustrator file that i then placed into the background to add in the paper like texture and then placed the green colour over the top of it to keep the background the colour that i wanted it to be. 

After sketching out a few ideas for my cover (in sketchbook) i felt happy to move on to produce it digitally.

Idea 1: 

I set up the image in photoshop so that i could place all of the elements of the scene into the age like i did with the digital mock-ups. Because the illustrations were produced with the pop-ups in mind i the proportions are a little off when they are all placed into one image. I would have tried illustrating this scene for the cover on its own rather than using the illustrations for the pop-ups but I am running out of time.

I tried placing it into the cover layout and added text to see how it looked. i used the typface Oxford to keep it consistent with the type used indie the book but it was a little hard to read.

i tried changing the font to Core Sans G because it looks more contemporary but it still just didn't look quite right to me.

Idea 2:

My second idea was to go with a more minimalistic and contemporary approach. I used a green background because this is a colour that is used a lot throughout the book and it is the same colour/shade of the main characters dress. Again i went with the Oxford typeface but this made it look quite traditional which doesn't really match the inside of the book.

i changed the colour to a slightly lighter shade of the green which makes it a little less bright and easier on the eye. i changed parts of the title of the book to Core sans G to get a mixture of both sans serif and serif typefaces in. I felt that this worked well because it creates a mixture of contemporary and traditional which is similar to my illustrations.