Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

• Compare your planning/digital flat plans/ storyboards to your final product• My entire final product reflects my planning. From the beginning one for my initial ideas was to

have a story based around judging people from their first impression and the way that they look. Also from the beginning I knew that I wanted to use animals as the characters within my story. I wanted this to be able to avoid any ethical issues, such as using a diverse range or people. I wanted to make all or my characters as human like as possible, with faces. I gave them large, out of proportion, eyes to make them look happy and approachable. I also gave them all smiles to help them look friendly. I thought I was important to do this so that the children looking at the book would be able to more easily relate to the insects and the situation that they where in. Most of my digital flat plans accurately reflect my final product. The same events happen on each pages as that was originally planned however some of the page layouts have changes for example some of the placements of the characters or the location of the text, I changed them to make them all fit better together and give an overall better look.

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 like the way that I have constructed each of my pages. I think that they all fit well together and there are no big and empty spaces on any of the pages. During the process if I found any empty spaces, I would use text or other new elements of the picture to fill it. I did this to help add interest to all areas of the images and not make the pages look patchy. I like the colours I have used within my children's book as they flow though from page to page as I used the same colours for each feature of the images on each page. However to make this better I could have used brighter and more fun colours to add extra interest to the overall look. More brighter colours would have helped to attract more people to look at and buy the book. My favourite thing that I did with my images is incorporate different textures into each animal, I took inspiration to do this from the popular children's book ‘the very hungry caterpillar’. It adds more texture and dimension to the pictures. Examples of the textures that I chose to use include; leather for the ladybird, fishnet tights for the dragonfly wings and velvet for the main texture of the caterpillar.

How well have you used text to anchor your images

• You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.• With out the text the images I have created would not have the

meaning behind them that your do in combination with the words. The text within my children's book gives each page of images context. However without the images the text would still be relevant but less exiting and interesting for the reader. I think that they all fit well together and there are no big and empty spaces on any of the pages. During the process if I found any empty spaces, I would use text or other new elements of the picture to fill it. I did this to help add interest to all areas of the images and not make the pages look patchy.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

• Reference your proposal• Give an audience profile and describe suitability in reference to content• The audience that I am targeting my book towards with between the age range of 3 and 5

as I will be using simple terminology and bright colours to help attract them to the book. I have added a good moral to my story, hopefully to entice that parents to buy my book in order to help teach their children right from wrong. I have not aimed my book at any specific gender as I will be using gender neutral colours, however all of my characters will be female. I have done this because boys seem more accepting of people to their friendship groups that young girls. The class that my book is aimed towards is not specific as the moral I have included is relevant to all people. My book will be targeted mainly to people of the United Kingdom as it will be written in English, however it will also be suitable for those in other English speaking countries such as Australia, Canada and USA.

• I think that my final children's book works well for my target audience. I think this because I used lot of multicolours to make it appear nicer and more attractive. I have also included a moral to my story that I think parents/ adults would go for, as they would want their children to learn about.

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

• Reference specific tools you used with images• I like my initial choice of using shapes to create all of my characters. This is the main technique

that I used throughout my children's book to create each page. I liked using shapes because it was a quick and easy way to get clean and smooth edges to my animals. Also by using the same technique for all of my characters they would all fit together and flow through the book as they would all look similar, all being the same style. Other techniques that I used include rotoscoping. For example I created the foreground/middle ground using the rotoscoping method. I did this because I wanted to add some variation to my work to make it more visually interesting. I chose rotoscoping as I like the cartoony affect it gives, much like shaping, however it looks different. A technique that I used a lot within the images that I created was 'clipping mask' I used this to give my characters different textures. Examples of the textures that I chose to use include; leather for the ladybird, fishnet tights for the dragonfly wings and velvet for the main texture of the caterpillar.

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

• I thing that I liked the most about my final product is that all of the pages flow well together. I wanted all of my images and text to follow well throughout the whole children's book that I created to that I was of high standard and looked like a professional and published children's book. I made the whole book flow by using the same colours throughout. For example I used exactly the same greens for the leaves on each page that they appeared. I did the same with the colours in the sky.

• Something that I dislike about my final product is that I could have chosen to use brighter versions of the colours that I chose to give it an overall better appearance and look more appealing to the reader.

Why did you include the content you used?

• Images, fonts, effects, colours• I included the images that I made for my children's book to help set the scene for the text of the

narrative. I included images of all my characters on each page in which they spoke or had some sort or interaction with another character. However on some pages I placed characters that didn’t speck. I did this to help show the friendship groups that had formed throughout the story and to translate the feeling the reader has developed for one character on to similar characters, for example characters of the same group.

• The font that I chose for my children's story book was 'Athelas'. The main reason I chose this font for my book is because it is easy to read. This font it easy to read because it is serif. This is the tail parts of the font, it makes it easier to read as it is easier to follow from one letter to the next.

• The colours that I chose are not very bright versions of them selves, however there are lots of different colours to help brighten up the book pages. I didn’t use all bright colours as I wanted the colours I used to reflect the natural colours of the object and keep it as realistic as I could at the same time as keeping them looking very cartoony.

What signs, symbols or codes have your used in your work?

• Choices of colour, style, locations, character design and tone all give additional meaning to your work.

• I chose to use lots of different colours within my book, however they all have a slightly dark and grey undertone to them. I did this because I wanted to reflect the realism of the setting, because I wanted the final product to be relatable for my target audience. For example I wanted the location of the setting to reflect an English park or garden.

• Another thing I deliberately did within my children's story book was creating the mean and prejudice characters and the more attractive and pretty insects, as appose to the 'ugly' creatures such as the slug and stick insect that I made. I did this because I wanted to show the reader that personality is much more important that looks and that a per

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?

• My children's book has no human characters. I did this because I wanted to avoid any ethical issues such as race and religion. However all of my characters are female. I have done this because boys seem more accepting of people to their friendship groups than young girls. I think that having a lack or character types within my story doesn't affect the books representation because any other character types within my children's story, would be irrelevant to the story, the existing characters and the moral behind the narrative.

• I set the age of my characters as young as they are still at school. I did this to make the story more relatable to the reader. I also chose for them to be young as it shows how young people can be very different from each other and often depend on each other a lot.

• An other representation within my children's story book is the formations of groups of friend that happens from a young age. As in my story one of the groups is two faced and only like and want to be friends with the people that is going to make them look cool and often go for looks. The other group I created for my book is the friendly characters that are accepting of everyone and like personality over looks.

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?• The visual style of my characters in my children's book is similar

the that of Eric Carle's 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. This because I have used the clipping mask feature on Photoshop to add different textures to the animals. Examples of the textures that I chose to use include; leather for the ladybird, fishnet tights for the dragonfly wings and velvet for the main texture of the caterpillar. I chose to take style inspiration from 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' because it was a very successful book and I wanted to add some more dimension to my images, this was a good way to do so.

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• Researching into some existing children's books proved very useful for me as I took

inspiration on simple things that make the books work well such as; the layout of the text with the images, also the fonts used as well as the style of the images and how they where created.

• Planning my work was also very useful for me as it meant that I could get a rough idea of the basic lay out of my final pages. It also gave me chance to experiment with different placements of features within my book and different elements such as fonts and spacings between letters, words and lines of text.

• I think that over all I managed my time really well. For example I was on track to finish my final product to the time scale that I had created for myself in the planning document. I have also completed all of my other pieces of work within good timing and to a standard that I am happy with.

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?

• A product that currently exists which is very similar to mine in style is Eric Carle's 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. They share a similar style because they both include different textures within the layers. For example Eric Carle used the texture of crumpled up tissue paper at the texture for things such as the sun in his children's book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and I used textures such as leather for the ladybird, fishnet tights for the dragonfly wings and velvet for the main texture of the caterpillar.