Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Use this template to help you evaluate your project.

You should give specific details about your work.

You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project.

You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are good or why you are proud of them.

You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve.

Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here.

Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

• Compare your planning/digital flat plans/ storyboards to your final product

My digital flat plans (top image) were created through images and characters that already existed. This was a rough

idea of what I intended my book to look like. The image on the bottom was a test page, that was created entirely through

Photoshop, and was also a rough plan of what I wanted my final book to look like.

The character on the right was my original character in the final product, but I discovered how difficult it was to

change the body position and I understood that the character may be

too complex for young children, therefore I adjusted it slightly.

The image on the left is the test page I created for my development and planning. The image on the right is the final image I used in my book. There are quite a few adjustments from the image on the left to the one on the right. For example, I changed the spaceship to add in some textures to make the image look more interesting. I have also adjusted the characters to make them more suitable for children, with including things such as a face

to help the children feel more connected to the character. The first image was mainly created through the pencil tool, whereas the second image was created with shapes as well as the pencil tool. Although there are some differences between the two images and between my plans and my final product, the main idea is still there throughout. The page layouts are exactly the same, however there are just a few adjustments to each image.

The main reason for changing the characters and the general look of the images is mainly for the target audience, as I thought that the first image may have been a bit complex for young children, therefore I adjusted the characters to look brighter and I also gave them faces, so the reader can feel a connection to the astronauts as they are the “good guys” of the story. I also changed the font to Chalkduster, as I thought it would look better

and may be even a bit easier for younger children to read.

These were the hand drawn flat plans which were used in my development, which almost

reflected the final product exactly. There wasn’t many adjustments made to these when creating my

final product, as I thought everything from the hand drawn flat plans looked and fit quite well with

the narrative.

How well have you constructed your images?

• How well have you constructed your images? You could talk about the overall visual appearance and well as the use of texture and colour.

I tried to use a mixture of textures on this page to give the image a more interesting look. However alongside that I used flat shapes and in this image I drew the Earth after scanning in a drawing, which helps to create a nice

contrast between the flat looking shapes and the textured shapes. In this image, I used a space background to give the image a slight sense of realism. I have also tried to use as many bright colours as possible as it will help to grab

the child’s attention if there are lots of bright colours.

I have tried to make the appearance of my book look similar to the existing products on the right. All of these images have included drawings and shapes to create the final product. However, the main difference between

my final product and the existing products is that I have used different textures on my images to give it an interesting look. I feel as though the overall image has turned out fairly well as it looks very similar to existing products that have sold well. I also added a stroke to my text to help make it stand out and easier for children

to read, as without it may blend into the background and be harder for children that are learning to read.

How well have you used text to anchor your images

• You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.

Throughout the book, I have used the same font, which is Chalkduster. I used it as I thought it fit in well with the images and that it stood out against the background. I also used this font as I thought it would be fairly easy for young children to read in comparison to some other fonts.

On this page, I have used the text to describe the situation and what was on the page. I have done this to make it easier for young children to understand the setting and what is going on. I have tried to write in the simplest way possible, so younger children can understand the story. I have also written in a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, as that is how children will be learning to read, therefore it would make it easier if they are reading something that looks similar to how they are learning it.

On all of the pages, I have tried to explain what is happening in each picture. This helps the reader to understand the context of each page. I have also added

different facial expressions of the characters in each image to try to help the reader understand the way the characters feel in each image, as sometimes

they may not understand through the text.

These are all examples of other books that have used similar concepts to mine. For example, they are all written in a simplistic manner, to make the book more suitable for younger children.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

• Reference your proposal• Give an audience profile and describe

suitability in reference to content

My Proposal: For my audience, I will be targeting boys aged 3-7. This book will be targeting no specific class as this book can be read by anybody. It will be targeted at people in Britain as it will be written in English and also sold in Britain. However, this book may also be read by people in other English speaking countries such as America and Canada etc. This book will be targeted at young children but will be purchased by their parents/other family/friends, meaning the book will have to look visually pleasing for the buyer as well as the children.

My book is aimed to target boys aged 3-7, which I feel like the final product is suitable for that group as I have tried to include different things to make it fit in to that target groups interests. For example, both of the lead characters in this book are male. This may help young boys to feel more connected to those characters, as they may see themselves like those characters whilst growing up. Also, it is very common for young children to want to be an astronaut, which helps if the reader has an interest to become an astronaut when they grow up, as they will feel more interested in the book as the main characters are astronauts. Also, I have included the common storyline of the main characters fighting the “bad guy” and the main characters winning.

Also, I have tried to make the book look as visually pleasing as possible, because the book is aimed at young children, that would mean they aren’t able to purchase the book themselves. Therefore, their parents or another adult would have to purchase the book for them, meaning the book would need to look as visually pleasing as possible to attract adults to buying this book for the child.

The book is also targeted for people in English speaking countries, as the book is written entirely in English, meaning it would be very difficult for somebody that doesn’t speak English to understand the storyline.

I feel as though the final product is suitable for my target audience as before I created the book, I considered the things that would be suitable and unsuitable for my target audience and I tried to fit in things that were fairly simple, to make the book as understandable as possible for the young children.

What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used?

• Reference specific tools you used with images

I really enjoyed using the shape tools as I like the overall look of the images after all the shapes are in place. I also found this

method fairly easy to do, which made my final product easier to make as I used this method to

create lots of aspects of the book, such as the characters.

I really enjoyed doing rotoscoping (left), by using the polygonal lasso tool to select areas of the image and then

creating a new layer via copy and then adding a colour overlay to create the cartoon effect. However I didn’t find

an opportunity to use rotoscoping in my final product, but it is my favorite technique to use.

I really enjoyed making the cartoon effect images (right), by adding the cutaway filter onto the image and adding a threshold, and then duplicating the layers and

changing the hue/saturation, and selecting and deleting sections of the image to reveal the coloured

sections. I also didn’t find an opportunity to use this for my final product but I still enjoyed using this technique

in pre-production.

I personally didn’t really enjoy this technique as I struggled to find textures that work well with different shapes. However there are some elements of this image that I like such as the clouds and the door, which I feel fit well. I used this technique quite a lot in my final product to create textures for different shapes, which does look quite effective. I did this

by placing a texture over the top of a shape and creating a clipping mask, and then adjusting the hue/saturation and the opacity to create a texture.

What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks?

I like the different textures on this image such as the background and the moon, and the textures on the spaceship, as it makes the image look more unique and interesting. I also like the Earth as this was created by scanning in a

drawing and coloring it in using a pencil tool. However, I dislike the faces and the body positions of the characters as I feel that the faces were rushed too much and the pencil tool has created a sort of jagged look to the facial features

which don’t make it fit in as well as the smooth lines. I don’t like the body positions of the astronauts as they look very rigid, as it was very difficult to keep the body in proportion but also adjust the position of them.

On this page, I really like the window and the space overlay I added in, as it makes the page look slightly more realistic which contrasts the rest of the book as it is in a cartoon style. However, I dislike the bed on the right as it looks slightly out of proportion and I feel like I could have spent a little bit more time trying to make it look more realistic. I also like the shapes used for the body of the two characters on this page, as the stroke used makes it

look a lot smoother and clear. However, I dislike the faces of the characters as they were rushed, and were added on top with a pencil tool, which has left jagged, uneven lines which doesn’t look very good next to the smooth stroke lines around the shapes. Therefore, if I were to do this again, I would spend more time working on their facial expressions, and possibly using the shape tool or maybe a paintbrush tool, to reduce the jagged lines.

Why did you include the content you used?

• Images, fonts, effects, coloursFonts: I have used the font, “Chalkduster” throughout my book as it is very easy for children to read. Also, I have chosen this font as with the added stroke, it stands out against the dark background. This font is also very visually pleasing which is good for the target audience, as we have established that an adult would need to purchase the book as the target audience is boys aged 3-7, which means they are fairly unlikely to purchase this book, therefore it should look visually pleasing for the adult that is purchasing this book.

Colours: I have mainly aimed to use bright colours within my book as young children are more attracted to bright colours than dull colours. As my book is set in space, a lot of the background is very dark and dull, so to contrast that I have tried to use as many bright colours to help the characters stand out from the background. I have also used different colours on each character as it helps to distinguish between them as without different colours and the space belt they wear, it would be very hard to tell who is who throughout the book, which could easily get confusing for a young child.

Images & Effects:I have used textured overlays by creating a clipping mask over a shape, which creates a nice effect as it contrasts against the smooth shapes of the characters, as they were created with the shape tool. I have added in some images such as the starry background and the space background through the window. I have done this to create some realism as my book is predominantly a cartoon style, therefore the images help to contrast against this, which makes the book a little bit more interesting for younger children.

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Audience ResponsesCultural competence:

Media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to be able to interpret them.

At a basic level, this could mean being able to read the language that a magazine is written in.

At a deeper level, it means being able to interpret signs and symbols that we use a visual shorthand to communicate ideas.

We recognise these signs in our own culture but find it harder to understand when looking at others.

We create and attach meaning to signs and symbols in many different forms.

Creative Media Production 2012

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Audience ResponsesCultural competence:

What is this?

This is a Norwegian Pine tree, covered in snow and with a red ribbon on.

Our cultural understanding allows us to interpret its meaning.

To us, in British society, it means Christmas, presents and family.

This is because we share a cultural knowledge.

Creative Media Production 2012

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Audience ResponsesCultural competence:

There are many other signs and symbols that we attach meaning to.

A leather jacket can imply rebellion.

A sports car can imply wealth and power.

A cross can represent religion.

Creative Media Production 2012

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Audience ResponsesCultural competence:

Visual representations of everyday objects are often the same the world over. A car appears as a car, no matter what country it appears in.

What that car means however, can be very different depending on your cultural background.

Creative Media Production 2012

What representations can be found in your work?

• How are men, women or children shown in your work? Does your work feature different ages, races, social groups or religions? Does a lack of any variety of character types create its own representation?

This question is very difficult to answer as the majority of my book is fictional, therefore there isn’t many representations in my work. However, there are two main characters that represent some groups. The two main characters are both male, as stereotypically, the majority of astronauts are male. My work doesn’t seem to feature any different races, or social groups or religions, as it is completely fictional, meaning there is no realism surrounding things such as social groups or religions.

However, the main characters may be able to represent age as they are both middle aged. This is because usually astronauts need to go through training in order to go to space, meaning it wouldn’t make much sense if the astronauts were children. However, if I did this again, I would maybe create the astronauts as children as it would help the reader to connect themselves to the characters, which can be quite successful in some cases.

What style have you employed in your products?

• Discuss influences/ existing products• What visual style does your work have and

why did you choose it?

All these books helped influence me to create my book the way I did as these have been created in a similar style to mine.

I have tried to create my book in quite a simplistic, cartoon style. I have included drawings and characters/other elements that were created through the shape tool. I

have also included some forms of realism within my work, through textured overlays, by using clipping masks. This is a fairly unique style, as not many existing products have

used textures along side basic drawings or shapes. However, I really like this style as it adds some form of realism alongside the unrealistic characters, which gives some

contrast, which I think would be interesting from a child’s point of view.

Within this image, I have included the metal texture on

the back wall, and the wooden texture on the floor and the space image on the background. I think these all give the image an interesting

look as it contrasts well between the plain, flat shapes

of the characters and the background.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and planning

• How did the planning and research help• How well did you manage your time• Reference specific examples

I feel like the pre-production was a massive help during the production as I had a clear structured plan of what I needed to do, and when it needed doing. This helped me to manage my time better and I was more organized when completing work, as I knew when I should be working on different things and when things should be completed. Also, the pre-production and planning of my book, especially where we did mind maps for our chosen storyline, helped me to gather ideas for my story, in a more structured way.

I also feel I managed my time well, as I produced a schedule for my work, so I knew exactly what needed doing and when it needed doing as I structured it into sessions, and I planned out what I was going to do in each session. However, there were some occasions where I didn’t exactly follow the work plan, as there were some adjustments that needed making on different aspects, which some took longer than expected. For example, I designed the characters, and the astronauts in particular, I wasn’t very happy with, and it was very difficult to change their body positions throughout the book. Therefore, I decided to completely redesign the characters using the shape tool instead of drawing it and scanning it in, and then redrawing over the top to fill in colours and shading, as this method didn’t really fit in with the style of my book. As I chose to redesign those characters, that meant it pushed back my work plan. However, there were some occasions where I made up for this, as there were aspects, such as the background, that didn’t take as long as I thought they would, which meant I was still able to complete my work in time, but I just didn’t follow the plan completely.

Historical and cultural context

• How does your work compare to what has come before? What other similar products have existed in the past? What current products exist?

My book was based on Little Red Riding Hood, which is a fairy tale. This means that this story has been around for a very long time, therefore there will be lots of adaptations to it. The most famous release of this book would be by Brothers Grimm. My book was inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, in the way that the alien was hiding who he was to try to steal from the astronauts, which is similar to the way the wolf is hiding who he is to eat Little Red Riding Hood.

These are only a few of many examples of the Little Red Riding books that have been released in the past. Some of these books are similar to mine in style.

These products are books that have already been published, that have some elements that are similar to mine. They aren’t necessarily similar in style but are similar in the theme of space. It is very hard to find an existing product that is similar to mine as my idea is quite unique and I don’t think the idea has been created and published before.