A2 Graphics- Exam Project: ‘Inside, Outside and In-between’
Final Evaluation
When we started off, we were all given general insight into
each of three options of the project: book jackets, book illustration and
typography books. This included getting us all started with observational
drawings, using techniques we would be able to think about and use further on.
I strayed into the areas of techniques and mediums I had used before like paper
cutting and digital experiments, working out how they would fit with the project
I had in mind. Early on, I decided to follow book covers as though I hadn’t
explored minimalism before, was still the one I felt didn’t have the most rigid
guidelines of what you had to produce. As Book Jackets range in style according
to the text and genre of the book, the best way the find inspiration is to read
the books and look at artist according to the method you are using in your
experimentation.
I chose Terry Pratchett’s Discworld collection of novels as
what to base my jackets on as they are works of fantasy, based on another
world, meaning and interesting take on the theme of inside, outside and in-between.
What I took the meaning of the project to be related to these books are inside:
what is really there, outside: what people see and in-between: what people
expect to see. This is based on the theory explained in a few of the novels
that people rarely see what is really there, only what they expect to see. This
is the one of the issues in the main book I was experimenting with, called ‘Monstrous
Regiment’ a parody and a book that challenges the view presented in ‘Monstrous
Regiment of women’ by John Knox. I chose as accompaniments ‘Night Watch’ and ‘Hogfather’,
as- though they do not feature a continuing storyline nor are next chronologically
in Pratchett’s series of work- they are feature ideas of a state of things not
being all of what they seem.
As progressed through this project, I’ve come across new
inspirations at every new approach I took. Going through the double exposure
tutorials, which inspired my idea of seamlessly merging layers for my jacket to
symbolise the layers of intricacy and the balance of inside outside and in-between,
then onto the abstract digital layer placement inspired by Ciara Phelan, fan
illustrations of characters from the book then onto digital layers in a
minimalist restrictions, created by the University of Cardiff for a poster.
This inspired me to use the observational drawings and the experiments I had
started with, liking particularly the aesthetic uses of colour illustrations on
tracing paper, which I linked very closely to the project theme. Creating more
illustrations to base on the books, lead me to the work of Hennie Haworth’s work,
using different colours over each over layer to create a multi-coloured pattern.
While working on the digital side of my exam outcome and putting the layers
together, I also notice a handmade similarity to Ciara Phelan, who inspired
using my primary source photographs which I try and work upon.
Overall, this project has been how well ideas develop
through the refinement of ideas and individual research yield unique results. I
have enjoyed the journey I went down, though clearer links should of been made
as well as clearer refinement and greater inspiration from an artist but each
experiment took me closer to a better result and what I wanted. As the process
to making my outcome is long and requires detail, and because I expand every
time I make it, I should think my outcome will show how far I’ve come, though
making all three at once, is very time consuming and I hope to finish all of
them in time to the best I can possibly make it look.
Write an explanation of your brief - what did you have to do? How did you come up with the ideas for this project?
To follow up from the CD packaging project is my Personal Project, which allowed me to write my own brief rather then follow a brief set out at the beginning and as such it deviates more noticeably from what I have done before as the project allowed me to explore methods and techniques which I personally preferred more. In the end, my idea involved designing and making toys handmade as it was a hobby I did in my spare time, however this would have to include various links to follow up from my previous project, which I chose to me the artwork, the design of the toys linking to my artist/ performer for the CD project and the use of colour and textiles to have a similar theme. My main theme from the CD project was the idea of space and exploration so I used some of artwork in the background and the idea for the top motion came from the exploration aspect so I decided on giving my toy character a journey.2. Write about the creative 'journey' of the project - how did the project and ideas evolve from start to finish through experimentation and research?It started from what my ideas of what I most wanted to do for this project so I mind mapped my best ideas which were 'toy making', 'animation' and 'costume design t-shirts' and all these projects would have to link to the CD packaging project. I chose the toy making idea but decided on using the toys I would make in a stop-motion animation advert after a discussion with my teacher on the purposes of my toys and the meaning of graphic communication design as a whole as a way of telling an audience what it is so you can sell it to them. I started then to look for inspiration for not only the animation and toy design, but the fabric and artwork I wanted to include as detail in my toy. I would say that my biggest inspirations were marydoodles, whose artwork and film editing of her illustrations, though not exactly stop-motion, shows her use of film understanding and narrative as well as inspiring ink illustrations and Shawnimals, who create simple yet stunning toys for children. Here I decided that what I making these toys would be for a recycling company it reflected the message in the song I wanted to use in my advert, 'I wanna be' by StarKid. I also decided to design a new logo as StarKid is Musical theatre production company, not a toy company though they do sell merchandise. My logo development really helped my think about what fabric and colours I should use and reflecting on StarKid's puppets in their various productions and linking it to my theme and who I am making it for, I took a puppet and made it with all the developments I made to make it my own. While this was happening, I was also discovering a story for my animation and practising my toy movement. In my final animation shoot, I decided to feature some of my main work from the the CD packaging project as that best suited with my theme and also I tied up the links in this personal project.
3. Who inspired your final outcomes? - You MUST talk about who has inspired your work - include images and links where possible.
In my AS-A2, my inspirations came from these virtual wallpaper tutorials as they were the lift of to further experimentation:
For my Personal project, I wanted these tutorials to be the building blocks and inspiration for the design of my toy as they were a big part of my AS- A2 work, though I knew I needed more inspiration then just the artwork of the piece. Looking at animation and toy artists were a big help as well too, as they helped understand how creative I could make my toy and video. It started with quite a few people, but my biggest inspirations were Jan Svankmajer for stop motion, Marydoodles for artwork, editing and effects and the Shawnimals toy company.
4. What do you think you have done well? What has worked? Are you happy with your final outcomes?
What has worked the best in my video outcome has been the editing I think. I am happy with the way shots move together so my toy looks like it is moving and the transitions and pacing works well. I was initially aiming for the video length of 30 seconds, but as the video can out at a minutes length, this works even better as my message is fully addressed and it works well as a story. In editing I lost some detail of smoother movement, but when I cut it, I thought it was for the best so it could speed up the number of shots per second, though in a way which wouldn't make it too jumpy.
5. What do you think you could have improved in your final outcome? - you need to talk about something, nobody is perfect!
What I could of definitely improved on would be the quality of the shot. I limited due to my camera as it adjusts it's focus and flash every shot, so each shot looks different in the way of lighting and focus. I also had to press my camera to take the shots rather than using it with a remote meaning that in many shots the camera moves out of position, so it isn't lined perfectly and looks unprofessional. I would have definitely have used a better camera. I could also spent more time on my sets and typography and as it is, my video looks rushed.
6. Conclusion - overall how did you find the project? What techniques would you like to develop further in the future?
It was hard at first, figuring out what we had to do ourselves. Making things not taught everyday is often hard, I think I adapted and did the best I can. I certainly helped figure out the best way to dye fabric and sew a child's toy, so I can do better in the future.
To prove that I feel that moving into Toy making, here I have two basic toys that I made a year ago in my spare time out of old pencil cases and bags, as a mark of celebration for leaving high school, as it gave me the opportunity to rip up and reuse some of the equipment that annoyed me at school. The one on the right was made first and you can see on the one on the left that the design is not as roughly cut.
These are an interesting and different example of how toy designs can vary in look, shape and material. The Typography creates an interesting and unique element with an urban style which would appeal to young adults, not just children. This photo was taken in Kingston.
A bear made out of packaging tissue, cardboard and sellotape, this is an example of how a toy can be made out of reusable material.
To keep this project close to StarKid which was featured in my last project, I decided to sort through each toy or puppet that they have made for their main musical shows, allowing for me to pick the best few to look at make with my own design.
To play with these designs, I have taken a few of the puppets and made them into the letters StarKid using chalk pastels. The smudging of the pastels gives them a furry look, accenting their purposes as toys. As puppets, they all have a distinctive look and colour, which links to the target audience of the musicals; children to young adults.
Moving away from the StarKid design, I tried to create my own look and favourite style of toy, so it took the shape of the Summer Sun-set Cavey, which is evident in its shape and design, though maybe a little too much. To distinguish it, I used Live Trace and Paint to create an effect that looks a little out of control! I painted it with an abstract brush to give it a whisky, furry look.
To tone down the 'out of control' look, I made a simple mouse design that would be made out of cloth. It is a mouse because of the recycled materials it would be made out of, and I imagine mice running around a dump full of old, thrown out materials. To link to my previous project the background is a primary piece in my outcome, which should have been the design on the toy but it was a challenge as some of the lines made in the Live Trace and design were too thin.
Fabric crayon proved to be interesting and enjoyable to use in designing, though difficult to get the right effect. As it came out weaker than what I hoped, I learnt that the best colours to use are darker blues and purple. Here I test out an idea for the brand name. The name comes from StarKid, though I thought that it would be better if I changed the logo from the previous project.
Here I test out colour on fabric using different mediums without using fabric dye. First we have ink, which helped prove my belief that blue and purple looked pleasing on that colour of fabric. To spread the ink out and to help colours blend into others, I applied water. The lighter the colours looked the better, but I didn't want them too dark or people wouldn't be able to see them.
This piece also made with ink, showed me it was best not mix fairly contrasting colour groups. I wanted to spell out 'STAR' all in a yellow, though I saw that the white background would be hard to see it on, especially if all the yellow words were pressed together so you couldn't distinguish them, so I tried to change the order with what I thought was black but it turned out to be dark blue. However I saw that yellow and orange worked well, but darker colours looked too dirty in comparison to lighter colours.
Here I tried to look at darker colors with acrylic paint. The blues work the best against the white. In this example, the black and green did not work as well and more unpleasant to the eye as the black looked too dirty and as the green was darker, became too dirty for my tastes as well, but the dark blue worked well with the lighter blue.
To look at lighter colours, I used water-colours in shades of blue and purple as they looked best combined together. The colours came out well, though in places a little dull. The white patches were supposed to symbolize stars as the theme of my last project was space, though it contradicts the uniqueness of the 'i' in this version of the logo and brand name.
Moving on from paint to pens, I once again tried to find the best colour amongst felt tip pens. They all came out at a good balance, making quite interesting rainbow colours, however a few colours mixed in with others that wasn't aesthetically pleasing and though parts looked dirty it looks overall in the various shades of blue and the yellows.
Green shirt dyed blue with string markings
Dark Checked Shirt
Dyed Linen sheet with rubber band mark
Now it was time to do it with the real thing: dyeing fabric. I chose a medium ocean blue as it wouldn't be too light or too dark and what I liked was that it also created shades of purple as well, especially in the second material as it had dark checked design. I chose these materials as they were past there useful stage: the first two are old shirts and the last was a linen cloth I picked up in Oxfam so they are all recycled materials in a way. To experiment with their colour, I tied a rubber around the linen sheet then tied string around the previously green shirt to see how the results would vary between the two. As shown they came out very different as the sheet came out with a circle pattern though not very clear and the shirt had a strange, abstract, wispy yet beautiful circle that was not straight at all. Parts of the old green design were showing through that reminded me of one of the art pieces for my previous project outcome.
Let's not forget about the eyes of a toy which are in usual cases the most important part of a toy as can add to what makes the toy unique. Here I have examples that I was thinking of in making the Bug toy: a bottle cap sewn onto the fabric (this proved to be too impractical as bottle caps are too large in size and sewing them takes a lot of time), wobbly eyes which I tested for their size (though these were too low quality and lacked professionalism) and cut pieces of plastic in the shape of two round eyes, which I used for the Bug doll as they had a resemblance to Bug's eyes.
This is a quick experiment I made while creating my own version of the Bug toy for the StarKid musical 'Starship'. Here you will see me actually make the toy through stop motion animation, though in the video I have the toy filling do it by pushing all the parts into place. The idea is that they found all these parts which are made out of old materials which have been lying around: for the head it's an old towel, the left arm is coloured tissue, the right arm is crepe paper, the left leg is paper, cardboard, rubber-bands and netting, the right leg is some old cotton material and the torso is some netting left over from Christmas. The eyes and feelers are pieces of plastic and coloured pipe-cleaners. The song 'I Wanna Be' from 'Starship' is played over this as this is the song Bug sings when he aspires to be something more than what he is and I feel that this is appropiate in this situation as well as he is essentially a pile of rubbish in the form of a red ant, but that doesn't mean he can't be lovable.
Shawnimals is family toy company based in Chicago and founded by Shawn Smith and his wife Jen Brody. Not only do they make toys, but they have produced their own game apps for the iPhone and iPad, based on the fantasy world created for their toys, called Ninjatown. Each toy has its own character description and lives in a certain part of the land created for these characters. Their designs are usually cartoon-like, cute and humorous for a young target audience. They make plush toys, key-chain toys and vector cartoon shapes as character stickers.
Here are some of the ranges in toys and collectables on the 'Shawnimals' website:
From their Ninjatown collection, this is Animal Spirit Ninja
Like many in the Ninjatown collection, this toy, Animal Spirit Ninja, follows a simple design with the only stand-out feature being the large eyes popping out behind furry bat-like hood. The effect of this and it's stumpy well rounded limbs is that the toy is made to look impossibly cute! The fur and cute design would appeal to children of both genders as it has a warm brown masculine colour but cute appeal. This is my favourite toy on their website, maybe my favourite toy ever since it just struck a cord with me. It's brown hood and animalistic body suggests it is a mysterious benevolent creature which comes from a dark forest, since it is warm and inviting brown, quite rustic and practical in design.
'Mustachios' Collection
Appealing to child-like humour and simple cartoon style, mustachios would appeal to children but also a indie hipster teenager, as most seem to have an affiliation which ridiculous or retro mustaches, steaming from the need to be nerdy or different from others.
Other collectables and art:
'Pocket Pork Dumplings' Collection
Ninjatown charms
Ninjatown stickers
'Mr Demon' one of the characters of the fantasy world
The Shawnimals company could really inspired me in my outcome as they believe size and complexity is not important: the more simple it is, the more it stands out. Also,the character of the toy really matters, even if they are part of the same collection and has a similar or signature appearance, each toy is unique and has it's own story, and that is what inspires me the most.
1+2) These are two toys my Grandmother made by a simple knitting patterns and tights, recycled as filling. Felt has been stuck on for the eyes.
3) Toys I made from recycled pencil cases and stuffed with cotton wool. The letters on the blue one's chest spells 'Robin' (for my brother) and has been stitched into the fur.
4) Plastic Toys that has been crafted to look like letters. I thought it was interesting to mix typography with Toys, so I took this picture outside a toy shop in Kingston.
Artwork from featured artists I have looked at before, artists I have just found and art from the previous project that will be featured in my outcome.
Marydoodles is the created name of an artist from Minnesota, USA named Mary. She is known mostly as an illustrator, working with paint, ink and pencils, however she is usually part of the production team behind the 'Epic Rap Battles of History' music videos, a popular web series on YouTube- were she is seen making most of the props and costumes. After the video is posted, she usually paints a visual representation of the music video and uploads it to her YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/marydoodles where she shows the making of the painting in time lapse. She herself puts the original painting up for auction and sells other copies, making her art her living.
Her art varies in techniques and materials: ink, water colours, coffee and even showing the controlling of water is shown to have an impact in the design. Because of this wide array of illustrative tools, she uses a lot of colour in imaginative and clever ways which impacts on the mood on the piece. A great deal of work tells a story, which is shown in her creation style of time-lapse. Examples of these works are 'Space Zombie', 'Time Bomb' and 'It's a Sloth eating a donut'. These stories can fold seamlessly into each other or they become a sort of cartoon strip being created as she paints.
'Time Bomb', is one of Mary's most unique paintings, not because of it's quick methods of painting and style but because of it's seamless transitions and editing as she paints, which makes it look like nothing has changed at all. She has also chosen to play parts her drawing in reverse and then normally, speeding it up in her usual time-lapse style, then slowing it down. This gives the effect of out-of-control time travel and that everything is wrong and backwards. It follows the story of an inventor travelling through time trying to save the wife from dying, however as it is a painting, it is harder to follow the story, so as Mary paints in the finer details, we get to see little clues of the real story (the suicide note), Easter-eggs to popular culture (like the Tardis from Doctor Who) and links to previous scenes through uses of recurring 'props' (the pictures in the drawing room, the rug in the gladiator pit). This leaves the audience to guess what is going on, which makes it an engaging piece. It's lack of colour fits the bleak look of the story and excessive use of water gives the aspect of the rain and it's cold bleakness, also being outside and alone, drowning in misery. Its also helps to make the tree in the final scene alive as it looks like the leaves are rustling in the wind. This is my favourite piece as it strives to be more than just a painting and be more like a film. As a result, it is not up for auction on her website, but it is still loved by fans.
Like 'Time Bomb', 'Space Zombie' incorporates more than one painting into telling a story, however this deviates from her normal method of telling a story through painting with time-lapse as all the paintings she shows are finished, put together as a kind of Stop-Motion animation to show some of the effects such as a blinking light, laser blasters, and a figure staggering along a corridor. This is almost like a contrast to 'Time Bomb' as colour is used to present menace and unease. It starts with military colours of dull whites and grey, however we see that it has a grunge look, and the childish kind of primary colours is shown with a kind of irony as it contrasts to the grim story. It is also narrated by Mary, who makes it first sound ominous, then as it comes to the story's climax, makes it a little comical with her own sound effects, which reminds of a child playing with some toys, killing each other, like a little boy. I find this piece entertaining and a great piece of story telling.
This piece, 'Who's Your Teddy?' tells its own story and in a very different way to 'Time Bomb' and 'Space Zombie'. Mary deliberately starts to draw the teddy bear first, then to show it falling of the cliff, so it can challenge your expectations of what is happening in the picture and to add an unexpected twist into the story. She also deliberately leaves out any colour until the end, making it look bleak and sad without any colour, then switching to mood to extreme comic-book with bright, intense and warm colours. It is designed to make the audience laugh as it shows improbable situations that is usually Mary's speciality.
As part of the production team of 'Epic Rap Battles of History', Mary decides to draw the finished product of the music video as they are something she has worked hard on. Here she draws my favourite battle: Columbus vs. Captain Kirk.
Here Mary shows some of here skills in other things than illustration as she makes this prop for an Epic Rap Battle of History.
I chose to look deeper into Marydoodles methods and techniques- even though I am embarking on Toy design, not Illustration- is because I because I think that I would like to incorporate some of Mary's storytelling style into my artwork and video. For example, to decorate one toy, I could try ink and illustrate the body, maybe to tell a story of its own, like a tattoo.
I decided to make a stop-motion animation of the making or the stories of the toys as an advert for the promotion of recycling to a young audience. Here on the mind map, I included more of the artists that would inspire the outcomes, including the art-work and animation, not just toy-making and designs.
This is what I chose to base my brief around as it is personal to my enjoyment of toy making and stop-motion animation.
Idea 2- Animation/ music video of the creation of my final outcome.
I was playing around with the idea of animation as I love making animation and stop-motion. This was a chance to combine both, but without a clear idea of what I would animate or create, unlike the toy-making project, which means that this suffers for it and was eventually scraped though I was keen on doing it. However, it helped me in making adjustments to the animation part of the toy making idea.
Idea 3- Costume design t-shirts.
This fell into trying to follow the last project closely, which is a priority. I found out later that I didn't need to follow it as closely as I do in this version of the brief. I thought it would be an interesting brief as I enjoy textiles and making and adapting designs, however the lack of detail and progression I included made it fall behind to the bottom of my list of ideas.
We have now finished our CD packaging project, which encompasses the thought processes, for example picking an (musical) artist, understanding the music and genre, find inspiring themes and artists to base work, looking at an artist's image, etc., and the creative work which was the album art, album cover, packaging, booklet, CD design and logo. I chose the musical group StarKid for the basis of this project as they have an interesting, new image and I enjoy their work, which means that every idea I came up with had to be linked to my understanding of their music and plays, meaning that first and foremost, my ideas were generated by my understanding of the band. For example, I imagine if their songs were a colour, it would be a rainbow, so you see a lot of rainbow-like colours in my work. They have dark undertones too, so I let that colour my work too. Secondly, I have a look at the packaging and art not only StarKid but other artists have used, so it is a whole range of ideas and people that have inspired me.
My creative journey spans all the way back to before summer, when we where first starting the project and coming up with an artistic understanding of music and its many genres. First, we started to draw familiar instruments and shapes we could relate to music in different mediums like pens, pencils, then moving on to ink, pastels and more. Then our work became more individual once we had picked our artist and started to think more about them as people. Over the holidays I did a number of experiments again this time including collage, mixed media, stencilling, stitching, water colours, in depth drawing, still life, photography and mixed typography, as well as developed vector designs from the previous term. Moving on to my Logo, I knew I wanted a clean logo, made on computer and well presented after we had finished the usual routine of mixed medium experiments for the logos. Using the helpful tutorials found on YouTube, I created a number of looks mostly inspired by two of my initial logos, one of which was a Combination mark and the other an emblem, both containing a rocket-ship, which was referenced in two of StarKid's musicals along with the planet Mars.
Using the tutorials and combining the two ideas and two of the tutorials, I created a logo which holds the image of a rocket-ship (which I initially could not make look right with the pen tool) flying past a 3D planet with a star design and crater. Next on my list was creative ideas for packaging and using other materials than just card simple net design. We also made CD origami holders, packaging out of postal materials, plastic bags, leaflets, paper, plastic bottle caps, string and more to hold a CD, making us think outside the box when it can to shape ideas, however what gave me the most inspiration was looking at how the packaging kept together, not how it was made, which is why on my packaging my biggest emphasis in on the front of the box, with the handles and the padlock. Finally it was developing my artwork and putting everything together. I had early on decided my theme for this album would be Space, which is explored by StarKid's work, and it was hard to juggle all their work. This is why my later artwork is drastically from my work during the summer, as I was torn between using the mediums I was using before, the photos I had taken during the photo-shoot or developing the wallpaper designs I had created in Adobe Photo shop and Illustrator. It is clear to see that I headed down the later route, though it didn't mean I was limited to these processes and I tried to incorporate the images I had taken but it was hard to use the hand-made work as these two processes clashed, though the they both had produced some of my best work. This is were I had the idea to compromise and use stitching (taken from my favourite hand-made work of the summer) to add parts to my packaging: stitch areas together, add more materials I explored but never had a chance to combine, etc.
So as you can see, the overall design is very simple, but I still have a chance to improve it a great deal. Also while trying to incorporate the photo-shoot in my packaging, I covered the negatives on the CD holder since I couldn't get hold of any StarKid flyers.
My artwork for my final outcome was initially inspired by StarKid's new, space-age logo, which has a colourful nebula background. Using this I did a number of my own experiments, helped by these tutorials:
This taught me how to make a space scene as my theme was abstract space.
This tutorial helped me to make a smoke effect. I was curious about making realistic smoke as my logo was a rocket-ship. In the end this idea was scraped
This was very useful as it gave me a place to download Photoshop brush sets that helped me create various other abstract shapes.
In the end I decided on my favourite wallpapers:
The Bokeh Effect, its rainbow colours suit it well, and the varying sizes of the bokeh circles look like planets.
Another version of the Bokeh effect, at this point it had become my favourite wallpaper so I decided to make it look a little more Space-like. I used a grunge brush to make it darker and a star shaped brush to add a little detail.
Finally, I used the Bokeh effect to edit this picture of a keyboard, then taking my logo, I made it into a brush to finish off the picture. I like it as the keys look like steps leading up to the ship, like the staircase holder in my packaging.
This background made a good design for the CD holder as its rainbow colours fit. I also like the down streak which looks like flames.
Bokeh Tutorial
Colorful background tutorial.
The idea of the box came to me as I was watching StarKid's musical 'Starship.' The biggest set piece of the play was a pair of the Starship's doors which could slide open. I tried to make the mechanism that would slide open the two doors on a box, but it was too difficult. Instead, I decided to just have two normal doors with a pair of handles to open the doors.
The Sliding doors in 'Starship'
As it was hard to close, I decided to add a padlock, inspired by the Houdini album by Jessamine:
A CD case you have to pick. My lock is a bit more traditional: you unlock it with a key.
My idea to make the unique staircase holder contained within the box came from a suggestion made by a classmate whilst listing ideas on how I could improve my packaging design. The idea came from the understanding of stages in parallel to the steps leading up to rocket-ships From that idea came this:
A three layered staircase, that is intended to contain the CD, the Inlay and a poster.
My idea of using stitching to hold the packaging together was inspired by the techniques shown in this tutorial, which was part of the summer assignment project:
The project has gone by very quickly, making it hard to finish on time, especially with the amount of work I had to hand in. I was pleased by the amount of the experiments I had done in preparation as it really helped me find a look for my packaging, unfortunately as later on I was working on the computers, I found it hard to keep my sketchbook updated as my experiment were all computer based, meaning my blog showed the most level of progress, though parts were missed out since I was working so quickly: for example when we had to do analysis on packaging ideas, I pick three random packaging ideas rather than a generalised look at them all. When I had discovered I could of looked deeply at Jessamine's 'Houdini', I was too late as I was caught in the sea of work. Since we had so much to do, there no time for mistakes, which is unfortunate as my CD packaging kept coming out frayed and unprofessional. Since I had the most to make, it took me longer to produce my work and I fell behind. I had little time to develop my ideas, improve my packaging and finish others, like my inlay and poster, so they became rushed. I do like the look of my outer packaging, though it was hard to make as it was required to be so big, meaning there was a problem printing it out. I couldn't print it all out on card, so I had to do a lot of gluing to get the pieces on. I did my best but it was still falling apart. The stitching on the staircase helped it immensely and it looked more professional. The stitching on the box helped a little as it stopped the glue from coming undone (I had to work with terrible glue) but since the width was constrained as much as possible, the staircase just manages to be put inside, and the stitching on the box became loosened slightly. The CD holder and CD are also a little frayed around the edges and a little glue is visible on the negatives but I am overall pleased about there shape. I had to make the CD at home, however I was able to print it out on a good quality card that gave it a shine. Although I had to laminate as the ink wasn't drying quickly, it still looked well-made despite a slight frayed side. I like the look of the decoration of the negatives on y CD holder as it looks innovative, though through lack of time, there isn't a track list to look at: it is only featured in the inlay. I think that if I had more time, I could of done a lot better and been sure of the way of it had all looked and fit together if I had been better at planning, as a lot of trail-and-error went into the production. Though it is satisfactory, I am slightly disappointed as it doesn't look entirely professional.
When we move on to the Personal Project, I would like to move on to developing my hand-drawn skills even more, all the while keeping in mind what I had done for the project: I have really become proficient at using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and would like to continue that link as well. Moving on from this, my theme will be Life, Space and the Universe, so definite links to a wide form of Nature, which I am interested in. Artists I would like to revisit and continue to explore would be Zim & Zou with their paper planets, Rob Ryan's in depth paper cutting and Deborah Moon's style and collage.
