Evaluation
At the start of this project, I was confident in my idea of creating a ‘choose your own adventure’ style book as I had had this idea for a couple of months beforehand. I am inspired by sci - fi films and books and so my plan was to make a sci - fi story where the user could be given choices to make which would lead them on multiple directions within the book. I also wanted to create props that the user could use when prompted in the book to make it even more interactive. The feedback given to me was to choose an existing story to work on instead of making up one for time and execution purposes. I then chose the book Fahrenheit 451 as I felt even though it was an old book, it had themes that were very current to today. On reflection, I decided to scrap this whole idea because I could tell that people were confused by the way I was presenting it.
Through further research, I started looking into sci - fi fashion and was inspired by the use of materials, being largely found items, plastic and trash. This lead me to look at the word ‘trash’ and all the different meanings behind it. At first, I wanted to make a magazine with every spread showing a different meaning behind the word to inform people how variable a word can be. Feedback showed that I should refine more and so I decided to make a book detailing the timeline of the word ‘trash’ and how it came to be the phrase ‘white trash’.
There was so much content so I learnt how to edit and refine a lot in this unit. I struggled at the start to find a system for my visuals, however this provided lots of different experiment styles and so I’m glad. The main thing that I have learnt in this unit is what kind of designer I want to be. I’ve noticed now that I love surface pattern design and, of course, illustration. Using the system of paper and texture in my book has inspired a love for it and in the future, I want to focus more on this area as I think I could be really good at it.
It is no secret that I am not the best execution - wise. I find it extremely difficult to book bind but I didn’t want to avoid this and get the book bound for me, this was the perfect time to practice. The piano hinge bind I chose was still tricky because of the amount of pages I had to fix together but I am so happy with how it looks and I believe it to be the best book I have executed on this degree. I have explored so many styles, illustration, photography, pattern, mark-making, even using real dirt and it was fun to carry out and explore.
If I could make changes, I would follow my ideas through more. I have a tendency to have lots of ideas but dismiss them very quickly or even delete them. From my first few mockups, the books aren’t complete and that is because I would come up with a better idea and so continue on. I should execute my ideas so that it is known how many I have and how many experiments I do.
Overall, the book that I made was not what I was expecting to create for my final major project but I am very happy with it, from the idea to execution. I have learnt so much in this degree and I feel ready to brave the adult world now.
Woo!