Negotiated Project - Evaluation

For this project we were able to propose our own idea through a learning agreement. We had to write a proposal to our tutors about what our aim was and what we were going to carry out. My proposal was to design a travel guide for Berlin, aimed at adults and children. I decided to design 2 separate guides. One for the adults and one for the child. The adults guide would have all of the important information inside and the children's book has activities for them to do on the plane and whilst visiting the city. 

For initial research I looked at some illustration books for inspiration on some techniques and styles. When looking at my final images I realise that I haven't actually taken much inspiration from the research books I looked at, as well as the few artists that I looked at. I got most of my inspiration from illustration travel guides and normal travel guides. Looking at illustrated travel guides gave me a lot of ideas for the style of my guide and looking through children's activity books gave me ideas for the games and tasks I came up with. 

At first I started drawing images in a sketchbook traditionally, using pencil and ink etc. But after a while I figured I didn't see it going anywhere good so I decided to change my technique to using the graphics tablet instead which I thought worked so much better. The main part of the guide I was creating was the imagery for the separation pages which I used stereotypical symbolic images for them. For example, a money sign for shopping and a knife and fork for restaurants. The colours I used were blues for the symbols as I found this to be a nice neutral, safe colour especially with the bright colours of the German flag themed splash on the background. Speaking of the background, Brusho was my first choice of media but the colours were too much for the page so I used Photoshop to manipulate the image in a way where it fitted better with the theme. On the separation pages the page opposite the title usually has an image of something relating to the topic so for this I decided to traditionally draw them so I had some kind of variation in techniques and media. I started out by drawing out the images and after a lot of trying to find the perfect technique I decided that using coffee to paint the images. After I did that I loaded them into Photoshop and arranged them onto the correct pages and I was really happy with how it turned out. The neutral colour of the coffee fits nicely with the brightness of the opposite page and I really like the contrast. For the front cover I thought black cursive and bold text would work well as the font is aimed more towards adults. I also used an image from the coffee paintings, the Brandenburg Gate, for the front of the guide as an indication to the inside of the book. I tried getting in touch with some travel guide companies to ask what they believe makes a successful travel guide but they didn't get back to me and I also did not receive any feedback from a survey I put live about the outcomes of my work. I am putting this down to experience and that not everyone will show interest in things like this. 

For the children's activity book I went down the same route as the normal travel guide so that they would be suited as a duo, for example using the same colour scheme etc. I did the titles a little different by making them look like German flags, just to make it more suited for children. I came up with 9 different activities and used the graphics tablet to create all the imagery to go into it. I thought the graphic style would best suit for a children's book as most books aimed towards younger people are graphics based. I tested out the activities on my 5 year old Nephew and he managed to complete them with minimal help. 

Over all I feel I have accomplished what I was determined to and I think that I used my time well and created something which could be rather successful if it was to be produced. 

Negotiated Project - Separation Page Images

Most travel guides have an image which corresponds with the section topic on the title page and this is something I wanted to include in my guide as I feel it is a nice feature. I spend a long time trying to figure out what I wanted to use for the images, whether it be ink, paint, or other materials. After a lot of thinking and destroying many pieces of paper I decided that using coffee to paint the images would work well. I chose coffee as the colour is quite neutral and therefore it won't look too much next to the bright colour of the opposite title page. Below you can see the stages in which I carried out to create and assemble the images. The first stage was the simple line drawings, then the coffee painting step then the addition of the black outline and finally the assembly of the image onto the double title page. I really like how these have turned out even though the process of getting here was long and difficult. The development stages of this were not worth visual recognition, yes, it was that bad. As there are a lot of images I will just show one development process and then all of the final double page spreads. As you can see on the 'about' page, there is just a small border on the opposite side to the title. This is because this page with just have one paragraph about Berlin instead of a representative image. 

Negotiated Project - Possible page designs

I loaded the brusho experimentation into Photoshop and played around with the positioning and sizing and found one which I really liked. I used this background that you can see below and made it into the colours of the German flag which I think looks good as well as stays connected with the kids activity book. I really like this because I feel the background looks like the shape of a map. I also altered the size of the titles as when they were going outside of the circle it looked out of control and very untidy.

The inside of the pages where all of the information would be will have separation lines to section the page into different parts to keep it organised. Most travel guides have no lines and just have small sections of text but I wanted to break up the page a little bit. I tried out three different orientations of the separation lines just so I had a choice of variation. As you can see below, I tried two vertical designs and one horizontal and I have decided on the horizontal lines as I think it is rather unique because most guides are set out in a vertical style. I used a generously thick line in the same colour as the border. 

Negotiated Project - Brusho Experimentation

For background experimentation I used orange, black and yellow (German flag colours) brusho ink to create some abstract backgrounds for the separation pages of the travel guide. I used these as they are but the colours and boldness was too much and after playing around with the brightness and contrast settings I realised it wasn't going to work. However, I didn't want these to go to waste so as you will see in a future post I used then in another way which I hope works better.

Negotiated Project - 'Tours'

For the section separation pages I used the same font as the front cover (which I did myself) for the title of the section. I also kept the side border on as I would like this to be a reoccurring thing throughout the guide. I used a light blue circle as the background of the title which connects to the background of the front cover of the kids activity book.  I like how the text comes over the edge of the circle as I feel it has a subtle abstract look. I experimented with the positioning and opacity of the icon and I believe it looks the best when it is at a low opacity and taking up the whole background of the circle. The icon which I used for this section is a sign post illustration as I think this suggests going places and directions. 

Negotiated Projects - 'Events'

For the section separation pages I used the same font as the front cover (which I did myself) for the title of the section. I also kept the side border on as I would like this to be a reoccurring thing throughout the guide. I used a light blue circle as the background of the title which connects to the background of the front cover of the kids activity book.  I like how the text comes over the edge of the circle as I feel it has a subtle abstract look. I experimented with the positioning and opacity of the icon and I believe it looks the best when it is at a low opacity and taking up the whole background of the circle. The icon which I used for this section is a calendar as this suggests keeping dates of events.

Negotiated Project - 'Restaurants'

For the section separation pages I used the same font as the front cover (which I did myself) for the title of the section. I also kept the side border on as I would like this to be a reoccurring thing throughout the guide. I used a light blue circle as the background of the title which connects to the background of the front cover of the kids activity book.  I like how the text comes over the edge of the circle as I feel it has a subtle abstract look. I experimented with the positioning and opacity of the icon and I believe it looks the best when it is at a low opacity and taking up the whole background of the circle. The icon which I used for this section is a knife and fork as this is the usual icon for a restaurant or a place in which you can eat. 

Negotiated Project - 'Shopping'

For the section separation pages I used the same font as the front cover (which I did myself) for the title of the section. I also kept the side border on as I would like this to be a reoccurring thing throughout the guide. I used a light blue circle as the background of the title which connects to the background of the front cover of the kids activity book.  I like how the text comes over the edge of the circle as I feel it has a subtle abstract look. I experimented with the positioning and opacity of the icon and I believe it looks the best when it is at a low opacity and taking up the whole background of the circle. The icon which I used for this section is the currency of the country symbol. In this case Euros. I started out with a shopping cart but I preferred the overall look of the Euro symbol.