Learning Outcomes
- Imagine and make one design response to your self initiated project brief, as outlined on your mood boards. Demonstrate your development. Upload initial ideas and sketches to the Ideas Wall and reflect in your blog.
- Make prototypes and experiment with design and production techniques to ensure you engage with your target audience. Do not forget to record all tests, even if they fail, and add them to the Ideas Wall. Evaluate the success of your experiments in your blog.
- Design and deliver your final outcome, in line with your original aim and objectives. Post the final outcome on the Ideas Wall and reflect on your blog.
At the end of last week I was still exploring the idea of location and language. While this does contribute to this weeks work I have started to explore other ideas and began to incorporate history and stories into the project. I believe that this is a great way to engage a younger audience into their history and local area, many of these stories are at risk of not being told and forgotten and what a great way to celebrate them, through a children’s book. I have worked with a friend who has children to look at existing books and also what we believe would be good stories for children. We discussed the characters and stories at length and believed that this would be a good direction for the book. He had hi lighted that the use of location alone is not enough. I needed to pin something on that location to really make it stick. This is where I am at so far..
This week has been spent refining and writing the story. I will gain feedback from my peers in education, specifically English teachers to help me develop the story to suit a younger audience. I will also aim to gain feedback from children and judge their reaction as to how I am able to develop this story further. I wanted to incorporate lots of the different myths and stories from around Cornwall to hi light their existence but I did not wish to go into so much detail on each that it would spoil the flow of the book. I need to now design the front cover and aim to conclude the story.
Being a reflective practitioner is an essential skill that I have developed as a teacher. Each lesson I am able to pick through the elements that worked best to support particular students and I am also able to identify and areas for development. One particular model that I use for this process is Johns Model of reflection that identifies the process as being: Identifying influencing factors, Asking yourself, could I have dealt with the problem / situation any better? Under this model you are then asked to think about any learning opportunities. What are the lessons, ideas that I can take away? Finally a description of the event or problem can sometimes lead to a deeper understanding of the process that was taken rather than the perceived route. There are a wide range of models for reflection in Teaching and most are developed from Nursing however I believe that these simple questions and processes are a valuable tool for learning.
To help develop the story and ensure the use of english is correct, I have had a little help form the English department and we have worked on the story a little more. I still need to add one more character, maybe two. however the rhythm and flow of the book is getting there.
A huge benefit of printing this out was that it enabled me to really see what it would look like and I had noticed a few things that needed to change. Working from Ai to ID to put the book together I had created A3 illustrations and applied a eye dropped colour shape to the background in ID. This has not worked when it comes to the print out so from here I will change all illustrations to PNG’s with no background. This will then allow me to create smoother layouts with no colour issues but will also enable me to experiment with the background colour. While it does look okay on screen when in print some of the colours just don’t stand out like I had hoped. In some areas such as the Church at Zennor and the mermaid I am not convinced that the colour is right. Other areas that I need to develop are the size and positioning of the type. This is a step that I should have been taking throughout the whole process but it is an easy trap to fall into when juggling work. It is too easy to keep things on screen but I feel that the final outcome will absolutely benefit from this process of just printing it out and refining a few of the edges. I have worked the story to a point where I am happy with it and think that it works well, I will gain further feedback from my target audience and go form there.
Pixels and Serifs. 