Evaluation of Final Major Project
‘A Bug’s Life’
This is my final major project evaluation on my book called ‘A Bug’s Life’. The target audience that I have aimed the content and the design at is people who are Beetle enthusiasts or lovers of classical cars, I feel I f I had to put an age group on my target audience, it would be aimed at people aged 25+, I feel this age because it is a fun and retro car and would appeal to people around this age who would be able to afford one. The client of my project is Volkswagen Beetle and the intended message of my book is to inform and show the audience the life that a Beetle has under gone and how it got from where it originated up to where it is now in present day. The format of my design is going to be a hardcover book, approx. 24cm x 14.5cm in size and will be printed in full colour (CMYK).
My final design meets the required outcomes for the target audience as I have made sure that the content has been written in enough detail without it being to basic or overpowering, I have also ensured that my choice in images are strong, successful and would interest them in looking at the book, I also ensured that the layout and page design did not appear to simple and plain but did also not seem tacky, cheap and childish as this would turn my audience away from my product. It is very appropriate for the client as I have ensured my facts are correct from use of the Volkswagen website and an official timeline from Volkswagen, I have also used facts and quotes from their brochures and from a book dedicated to Beetles. It also shows the development and changes to Beetles in a positive way and would be suitable for them as it could support their new 2012 Beetle launch as I have included their important moments over the years and mention of the new Beetle, I feel that my book would strongly support and be appropriate for Volkswagen.
I meet the message of my project as the layout and chronological order of my book tells a story of beginning to current day, the content, imagery and style of the book with the change in appearance and feel of pages through the era’s and different styles, strongly shows the message of ‘A Bug’s Life’.
Through doing this project, I have advanced, learnt and taught myself new skills and techniques. In Illustrator, I learnt how to use Live Trace effectively and then apply Live Paint to my images, I really liked the effect and how it was such a simple technique to use, now that I have learnt this skill, I will be able to use it in more suitable future projects, where it works better and more successfully with the topic. I also learnt to use Photoshop in more depth, especially when cutting out images from their backgrounds and surroundings. I learnt to combine the magic wand tool with the lasso tool and using the plus and minus command keys to change the selection, I found that with this technique I could create a more cleaner and smoother final appearance and edge on my cut images. I feel where I have progressed the most is within InDesign, as I haven’t used this package much over the two years, after playing with the software, seeing what InDesign can do, create and achieve and with the help from online tutorials, I learnt the short cuts, how to use text wrap effectively, and apply drop shadows and feather effects, I felt that with these effects and techniques, that the overall appearance of my pages look very effective and finished to a high enough quality which is suitable for my target audience.
I have used a range of materials and media within this project; within my research I have been very experimental as I have tea and coffee stained different types of paper, such as kitchen roll, A3 plain paper and torn cartridge paper, I have also ripped and scrunched up the paper which has left me with some great textures that, when scanned and edited in Photoshop they work really well for my project and appear very grungy. I have also experimented with tracing paper and converting my drawings into digital media in Illustrator, I found this very effective and a great skill to have learnt. Media’s that I have used digitally also include the use of my own photography and enhancing and editing these using the different packages on the Apple Macs, I have also used the Photoshop filters and the drop shadows to enhance and make my images stand out further in my book.
For this project, I have researched and looked at a range of designers and artists as I had a range of ways in which I wanted to produce the appearance of my final outcome. I looked into the photographer Paul Smith as he produced a range of designer items and photographs for a special edition Mini Cooper. I also looked at artists Laura Carlin, Chris Boyce and Owen Davey, I really love their work and the styles and colours they use to produce their outcomes, in particular, my favourite is Owen Davey as his style of work is really fresh and innovative and I think in the future I will be able to gain a lot of influence from him. I have looked into the types of movements that was around during the different times of the content that is in my magazine, I especially looked into the 1998 Beetle year, as I needed to make that page really reflect the personality of this Beetle so I looked into retro designs.
The form of research that my project has taken has varied as I have used a range of methods. Firstly, I had to start and use a blog continuously throughout this project, here I uploaded my original brief along with my initial research and I then progressed and developed this blog weekly by looking into different styles of photography and looks to design work, I then branched out and looked into Simon’s Cat, Haynes Manuals, Wallace and Gromit and a range of other influential designers and designs. With the use of a blog, it allowed me to include videos and be more creative with my research; therefore I included VW adverts as this gave me a feel of how they communicate with their target audience, their style of advertising and the age group that they are targeting. I also scanned a wide range and varied images from Beetle brochures - current and older brochures, a booklet about the Cabriolet and I liked how they connected with their audience by allowing them to interact with the advertising via acetate, Racing Legend booklet that I found quite useful with the consistency of the layout and I liked the black and white colour scheme to show the aged content. I also looked at typography styles, block printing and different methods that I could incorporate into my brochure. Alongside this blog, I also created a sketchbook, which reflects the contents of my blog, but it contains my design work and shows how I have used the research from off of my blog to help with the designing of my layouts. I have also included primary research by using my own photography from ‘Big Bang’ at Santa Pod Raceway, I feel that this has really strengthened my book design and appearance and my photos will appeal to my target audience.
The research has influenced my project as it has allowed me to create new ideas and techniques by looking at the design work from other people, the layouts have really helped me design my brochure pages as the positioning of things made me think about the hierarchy of each page, how I want my viewer to see and interact with the page, how I can get from the start to the finish of the book without an obvious visual appearance of the year change and the positioning of the items on the page. Also, the research regarding the content was very helpful as it gave me great information and it allowed me to restrict the quantity and focus on what I wanted to put into my book, which would be more suitable for the audience.
I have linked the research into my own work by showing in both my sketchbook and talking about it on my blog how I have used the work to influence my designs and in what way they have inspired me by using similar techniques, referring to a particular artist, style or technique and then showing my take on the design.
The things that I felt worked really well in my project has been the development and designing of my brochure, I really like the opening pages of my book with the typographic quote and the photography. I also feel that my photography from Santa Pod has strengthened my project and it
re-motivated me in my project, I also felt that the message behind my project is really strong as you can see it subtly in my book, changing through the years and I feel that it is a modern and fun way to review history.
I feel what didn’t work well was the idea of both a sketchbook and a blog as this made twice the amount of work and meant repetition between the two occurred, I found that with the blog it was great for quick research and using different ways to present your research with videos and to communicate with people, but it meant every time you wanted to refer to your research or design from it, you had to have the internet at hand to use it, I also feel that it is more effective to have a hard copy of work such as your sketchbook so that you can relate to it in the future and keep all of your work together in the same format.
I feel the most difficult parts in this project was deciding what to do my project on, whether it would be successful and be good enough standard for the exhibition. I found that writing the content from using a current Beetle book and the information from off of the Internet and then deciding what to include and talk about in my book was one of the hardest parts as it was time consuming and held me back a week against my time plan, I also found importing images that were of high enough quality into InDesign hard and frustrating, I thought designing some of the pages so that they looked and flowed effectively and would be appropriate for the target audience quite hard as the images I wanted to include related with the content but didn’t work well within the page layout or design.
The most straightforward parts of my project I feel were the working to the time plan and structuring my work, for the blog, sketchbook and FMP. I also found gathering the research and information on the artists was simple to do and then presenting this in my sketchbook was successful. The designing of certain pages in my book were very simple and easy to do as they worked and looked strong on the page for both the hierarchy and visual content.
I have structured my work from beginning through to end as I drew up a time plan of what I needed to do and by a set date or week, I also broke my time up into sections relating to the work which needed completing first and ensured that I completed it all before moving on to the next task. I planned what I was going to research and I then uploaded this chronologically onto my blog and into my sketchbook so that you can see my thinking process and how I got from one idea to another and my reasons for doing so. Used my research and my own ideas of how I envisioned my book to look and then found and created the right materials and effects that I was after and applied these into InDesign to create my book.
If I were to do this project again, I feel I would create more experiments and show these in my book, I would have liked to have had some of my pages in my book interact with the audience more, such as tracing paper and acetate pages where images flip onto pages to create other images and to have different sized page sizes and to include my coffee paper pages, bound into the book, I also would have liked to have drawn up more illustrations and watercolours of the Beetles onto the stained paper so that I could use these in my book to strengthen the appearance. I didn’t improve it at the time by doing these things as I was unsure how to use InDesign to that strength and I didn’t know how to use the techniques so that they worked effectively, or find a printers who would be able to produce my book with the variation in pages.
By completing this assignment, I have developed my knowledge and skills by learning how to use InDesign and how effective and simple it is to create a book to your desired look, I have also thought about the costing and the different printed paper effects that you can get and how the pricing of printing a book will effect the price costing to the customer. I have more knowledge about the different packages and how the software works ion more depth by being more creative and experimental in them.
I feel I have met the learning outcomes successfully as I have ensured that my final book is appropriate to my target audience, the content appeals to them along with the visual appearance of my book, I have made sure that I have related back to my brief and my statement of intention and I feel that I have pushed myself with the design aspect of this project and I feel that ‘A Bug’s Life’ is a very successful product.
Chelsea Nelms
