Updated Work for Children’s Book
Criteria covered so far: linear and non-linear strands, graphic narratives, producing my own children’s book using appropriate techniques and evidencing those techniques, explaining and evaluating graphic narratives with examples, creating characters using appropriate techniques and giving them bios that suit graphic narrative and linear-nonlinear strands.
Criteria to cover: explain production of print based media (children’s books), provide research examples that I used to come up with the idea of my own book, give examples of other ways to produce print based media other than the ones I used, and evaluate work and what I learned throughout the unit.
Reflection Upon Graphic Narrative Work
The research I did for my graphic narrative created a story that was multi-strand, with both the main characters having pivotal roles to play in the plot of the story, and the narrative was linear - the events happen in a chronological sequence like a game of dominoes, one after another. This was a straightforward idea for me to put into play because it’s one of the more basic structures that stories use, but that was the point - the target audience was very young children, and they need a basic story structure for the book to be fit for purpose.
The story is targeted at children who are feeling lonely or don’t have many friends, as my own sister was going through a phase at school where she was having problems. The idea behind the book is to get all children to understand that isolating yourself from others is going to have a negative impact and produce negative circumstances for yourself - and to make friends and be kind to people regardless of who they are or what they look like.
This is partially why I chose to use flowers and boots for the main characters rather than people. When you introduce people into a story, you have to consider a lot of things - race, ethnicity, gender, age, et cetera. This makes it hard for the book to be relatable to kids. If you’ve got an old white lady having this problem, it won’t be relatable at all. So the thought process behind using boots and flowers was to just entirely remove that component and make the relatability factor entirely on the way the characters are thinking and feeling and the things they’re saying - not the way they look - as the crux of the story is to disregard how people look.
Again, this is why I chose to use a fairly straightforward scene of a street. Rather than go for a fantasy type of setting or a weird time frame, I wanted to go for something that people can easily relate to and put themselves into in their heads.
The colours used in the book are supposed to reflect the feelings of the characters and the moods of the scene. You’ll notice that when the story begins things are dark, and drab, and desaturated and not at all welcoming but as the story progressed and the flower gets happier everything becomes very vibrant and happy to match the character’s feelings.
Explaining Methods for Producing Print Based Media in the Form of Children’s Books
To produce my own children’s book, I went with a method that was very cheap and could be used by anyone with access to pens, pencils, paper, a laptop with the appropriate software, and a scanner. Providing the book would have been published, it would have been incredibly cheap to create in comparison to a book that uses more extensive methods to create it such as screen printing and lithography - whereas mine didn’t actually require printing, only sketching and scanning so I could digitalise the images.
To reference other ways books can be created, I could have used more complicated methods to create the characters on paper using pencils, ink, et cetera (as is with graphic novels: a different person does different jobs such as text, inking, pencil work, colour) and then using a professional scanner to get a high quality scan of the image into the computer to use in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
Assuming I wanted to print the book I made once it was finished, I would have had to consider what I wanted to finish it with. To do this I would have had to consider embossing, folding, laminating and other techniques used to create the finished product of a book. For mine, I think I’d have went for the style they use in the Mr. Men books by Roger Hargreaves - as those are the books I researched with to create the story and look for my own book. They are small, and look cheap to make with thick pages.
Providing Research Examples
To create the story for the lonely flower, I used an amalgamation of stories from Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men books. The specific characters I took for the idea of both the flower and the boot come from Mr. Bump. Mr Bump is clumsy, a bit dull, and often gets himself into situations that see him get a bump (hence the name) - this was the main draw for the character of the boot. The boot is also very clumsy, dull, but good natured and kind. In the Mr. Bump book, Mr. Bump always manages to see the silver lining in things regardless of what happens. I applied this moral outcome to the boot’s character, as displayed in the story. He also manages to see the silver lining and he’s happy with being clumsy and a bit dim.
The second and third story I used for research for the flower, were Mr. Mean and Mr. Quiet. In the story of Mr. Mean, the character is very alone and isolated and grumpy - he has no decorations or pictures or anything (or anyone) in his house and he likes it that way. Because of this, he has become very defensive and weary of strangers - just like the lonely flower. Eventually, however, a wizard turns up and after turning all of his money into potatoes, Mr. Mean is forced to make friends to learn that true wealth comes from happiness and the relationships we form with people.
I applied this story to the flower. When he first meets the boot, he berates him and tells him to go away. But once the boot explains the idea that the flower would be happier if he just made some friends and wasn’t so defensive, the flower undergoes a physical transformation (a graphic cue for children to illustrate a mental transformation, as well) that seems blossom into a colourful, happy flower.
In between these two stories is Mr. Quiet. Mr. Quiet’s story is pretty similar to Mr. Mean, except he’s happy in his isolation and not rude to people. However, Mr. Quiet lives next to Mr. Noisy - obviously this makes Mr. Quiet unhappy. Throughout the story, they learn to get along and compromise despite their differences and ways of thinking. This is applied to my children’s book because the same thing happens with the flower and the boot. They’re very different, but get along despite their differences after getting to know one another.
Evaluating the Work I’ve Done and the Unit Itself
To reflect on my work, I am happy with the finished product for the most part - just not with the text pages. The illustrations and how they came out after properly colouring them with digital techniques were pretty good to me and I liked that I could use the painting I did in class in some way to use as the background for my front cover. What I wasn’t so happy with, was the text. The text was rushed and sloppy and done with pencil and lined paper which isn’t an appropriate outcome and didn’t do the book or the illustration pages justice at all. To better this, I could have taken time to do different styles of handwriting with a proper pen, maybe some calligraphy or bubble writing or just something that would have been more appropriate for a children’s book as my block, scruffy handwriting just looks aggressive and could turn people off the book.
Secondly, while I am half happy with the finished outcome of the book itself, I’m not happy with the research I’ve done and the techniques I could have practiced. I did learn a lot of new techniques throughout the unit and I was forced to use InDesign which is a weakness of mine, so even just the little part of InDesign did help me and make me slightly more comfortable using it in the future which has helped with the two assignments I’ve just finished.
As well as this, the most important thing I learned about the unit was that in the print based media industry, and in all industries, I don’t get to necessarily choose the work I do all the time. A lot of the time, most of the time even, I’m going to be working to somebody else’s criteria and somebody else’s standards - this has given me a lot to think about in terms of my career and what I go on to when I’m older or in university. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of doing a children’s book and I think that’s been reflected in my work, which is a shame.
In future I’m going to put my own ego aside and get the work done properly instead of being childish about it, because in the end I’ve only cut my nose off to spite my face by doing rushed work that I didn’t particularly care about.
To summarise: I’ve learned to take more time and care with my work, that I’m often going to have to work to somebody else’s criteria so that it is fit for the client’s purpose (not mine!), that I can now comfortably use a scanner and programs required to turn a sketch into a digital illustration with colours and such, and that InDesign isn’t so hard to use afterall.