Reflection

Setting up the exhibition was a new experience for me, and an interesting one too. We all had to work together to organise the space; and the tutors did really well to curate the whole thing.

I decided to show a few different things in the exhibition. Not only did I show my 2 finished, bound booklets; I also displayed the best outcomes from my screenprinting sessions, and the booklets my little cousins did. I also included a photo of them engaging with the activities. They loved it, and I got some great feedback!

I have learnt a lot from this unit. Although I didn’t make something completely different to what I have done before, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and tried things I may not have otherwise done.

I believe that I have been more engaged in this project than I may have with others.

The brief has excited me from the start, which has made me want to commit as much as possible. My sketchbook has been a big part of this project, so it is a shame it will not be marked. I have never been assessed on a blog before, so it will be a challenge to include everything I have learnt and made.

The research stage is always the most important part of any project - I got some great insight and inspiration from this. The Whitworth itself motivated my choices mostly – their saying ‘playful, intelligent and personal’ really stuck with me, and the talks I had with Whitworth staff were also seminal in this project.

Finding out about the children’s magazine Anorak was a great moment, as this informed most of my aesthetic decisions. I went to almost all of the inspirer series lectures, and have attended all tutorials. Most of my design decisions were made after tutorials - if there were any suggestions to be made, I always took them into consideration. I was also very interested in what the students from other courses had developed, so the tutorials were never dull.

During the final stages of my book production, I managed to collaborate with a fellow student on this project, Sophia Quinn. I had problems thinking of what to put on the front cover – so she drew a wonderful pen drawing of Joseph Whitworth for it.

I edited this slightly in Illustrator, to be used on my front cover

I wanted to screen-print my whole booklet, keeping with the hand-made feel of the product. I figured out that I would have two A2 screens, each with three of my booklet spreads on it. I had one of the screens made first, as I hadn’t quite finished the other spreads.

Before I got my second screen made, I had a tutorial with Elle. She suggested I didn’t need to screen-print the whole booklet, but could use screen-printing to do prototypes – I needed to think about the paper stock and colour options. So I decided to use the screen-printing sessions to test my options, just using the one screen. 

However, only one of the double page spreads printed properly through the screen. From the three hours I had booked to screen-print, I learnt a lot about how to print and which papers worked better than others.

The mellotex paper worked best

This recycled paper was a bit thin, I used a bit too much ink so it bled through slightly

I didn't quite use enough ink for this one

This spread didn't work well at all. Some of the detail is too fine

Nothing printed perfectly on this darker paper

It worked slightly better with the paler recycled paper

I bought 2 different types of recycled paper from MARC the printers, in keep with The Whitworth’s ethos. A speckled one, and a brown one. Afterwards, I realised that the brown paper couldn’t be used, as there are colouring in activities.

I printed the finished booklet twice – on Mellotex and one of the recycled papers. Mellotex is thicker, so gives the booklet a higher quality finish. However, I didn’t use the crease machine, so the fold isn’t very neat.

I used a simple thread stitch for them both, using black thread for one, and white for the other. I had to ask Caitlin how to do it, as I hadn’t been to bookbinding in a couple of years.

The booklet printed better on mellotex, and I think the black thread looks better

The recycled paper looks good, however the title on the front page smudged a bit

As I also hadn’t printed a booklet for a long time, I ran into quite a few problems doing that. My document wasn’t printing from InDesign, even with help from staff. The paper feed also didn’t work for some of my recycled paper.

I have broadened the skills I need to be a better graphic designer in many ways. I've always found it difficult to make decisions - but having enough contact time with tutors and other students, I’ve found the feedback I’ve received to be very helpful. I’ve become more confident in talking to other students, which is also very important, as you don’t always get professional help when you need it.

Stepping out of my comfort zone, and overcoming all the problems I have experienced has been a good thing – I have learnt from them. Now I know what to do, and what NOT to do. Although this hasn’t been a Graphics based project, I have still learnt a lot about printing techniques and paper stock, especially with the help from workshop technicians.

If there were anything I feel like I could develop further, it would be the activities. I think I could have designed more activities and make them more thought provoking and educational. Also, I could have made the whole booklet appear more hand-drawn.

I have enjoyed making work for an unfamiliar audience to me. It's much more exciting producing work for a children's market and it is also great to have a known context for the work. I have loved working with and for the Whitworth. I've learnt a lot, not just about the gallery and park, but also about my own skills and area of practice.

Investigations

From my research, I had three very different ideas:

Originally I wanted to collaborate and step out of my comfort zone to make something I hadn’t done before, thus I decided to make the activity booklet. This decision was made after a group tutorial - my tutors and peers said that I seemed most excited about this idea, and it was more in my field of study. I started my visual research on pinterest

I chose this project to try something different, and possibly collaborate. I found the speed-networking event wasn’t as useful as I had hoped; I didn’t get to speak to as many people from different courses as I wanted. I also think that my portfolio didn’t show the wider spectrum of my capabilities.

When I decided I wanted the activity booklet to have a hand-drawn style to it, I asked my illustrator colleague to help me out. However, he has a full time job and I realised I couldn’t rely on this possible collaboration. I did some quick sketches anyway, to see if I could draw a character to include in the book. I also sketched up a typeface, which I later developed.

Although I didn’t collaborate with a colleague or fellow student, I found that I’ve had a bit of collaboration with the Whitworth – one of the most valuable experiences from this project, has been to talk to Jennifer Allison about the current activities available to kids at the gallery. Jennifer helps to run the Artist Sundays – they create ‘activity bags’, which children and their family can come along and try for free every Sunday. Each activity bag runs for a month and is based on a certain artist and their work. She gave me some great tips and ideas – such as which activities are the most popular, and which ones aren’t so successful. She also told me to be IMPERATIVE when writing up the instructions.  

As well as receiving amazing research and ideas from the Whitworth, I found a great reference to help with aesthetic and conceptual ideas – the quarterly kids magazine ‘Anorak’. It is a unisex publication, for ages 6-12. This magazine was the main reason I decided I wanted my booklet to be illustrative, and also the reason I decided on the 2 colour approach – Anorak also do activity books, and they are all singular coloured. I actually bought a copy of the magazine – the ‘outdoors’ one – in the hope it would give me inspiration for ideas for outdoor activities. However, I was a bit disappointed with the amount of activities in the magazine, and how little they related to ‘outdoors’.  It only had 3 types of activity – counting, colouring in, and one where you cut out clothes and dress two characters.

Designing the activities for the booklet has been quite difficult at times, as they need to be educational and fun, as well as relating to the gallery and park. I borrowed a DSLR from Uni, and went around the Whitworth taking photos of all the pieces of art that I could make an activity from.

I used some of these photos directly, to make my activities. 

I made a dot-to dot activity that didn't quite work

I also made a colouring in activity based on the 'Whitworth Park obelisk'

Having never made a product for kids before, it was interesting to try and get in the mind of a child - to create activities that were educational and fun, but also not to difficult or simple. The audience is pitched at ages 6-12, so I needed to have a range of activities and the aesthetic to be appealing, which is part of the reason I wanted it to be illustrative. Due to the fact that I wasn’t able to collaborate with an illustrator, it has meant that I have had to try different approaches. In particular, I’ve had to use pencil and pen effects much more, but still using Photoshop and Illustrator for finesse.

I started by drawing the design with pencil

I then went over it in pen, to then scan in to edit

I live traced it in Illustrator, then edited it to make the spot the differences!

I used Photoshop for this one, the lasso tool, to cut out the snowman shape

I realised there were too many numbers in this dot-to dot!

So I cut them down by almost half

This is the original photo I took of the painting.

I used Illustrator to live trace it, and then got rid of the colours and neatened the lines

I drew out some origami instructions I found online. I then went over them in pen, then scanned it in and used illustrator to neaten it up and add text

I copied a maze I found online, by eye. I then used a ruler and pen to neaten it. 

I looked at youtube tutorials on how to draw cartoon trees. I scanned these in to use in my booklet

I am also very pleased with the typeface I designed.

I scanned this into Illustrator to fill in the letters

After a tutorial, I decided to stick to a few main activities and concentrate on the design of the book. I was told to do a mock-up of my book, to figure out which activities to put in.

This mock-up also really helped me when it came to figuring out the colours for my spreads

The book contains just two colours – the first half will be a red brick colour for the ‘indoor’ activities, and the second half will be a grass green for the ‘outdoor’ activities. I also limited the colour palette, as there is a couple of colouring in activities in it.

I wanted the colours to be as true to The Whitworth as possible, so I used the eyedropper tool to select specific colours from my photos

In terms of skills and processes, I wanted to print my booklet in a hand-made fashion, so I decided to screenprint it. This will be a challenge in itself as I have only ever had an induction to this process. The decision was made against using risograph, as I will only be making 3 copies at most, and it’s more expensive.

Time management will be crucial from now on as I have to finalise the booklet activities. I need to decide on a final tonal colourway and test these colours in print. I also need to get screens made and book a slot to print. As well as all this, I will do a real life test of the booklet. I have three young cousins – Lola, 8, Cameron, 10, and Jonah who is 14. I will take them copies of the booklet to analyse their engagement.