Gdes2014: Previous Student Work Analysis

 Deadline: 5.15pm, Mon 22nd Nov.
• Please have emailed your completed blog post to your tutor by this time/date. All those received will be counted as 'completed' on marking notes.

• Here's a set of effective visual solutions to a recent student brief on this module.. It's really useful at this stage in your process to look these over and to examine and analyse them to see what factors 'work' and potentially what factors (from your perspective) could still be improved upon.

Project details

Client: The National Archives (TNA), Kew, London

Project: Significant People Educational eBook Sample Spreads (A4 Portrait).

Audience(s): School parties (7-11yrs) who have already visited TNA and who want to do further linked worksheets based on things discussed on their visit. Parents at home working with their children on a project of this nature.

Client 'ask': Develop sample cover and reverse cover pages as well as sample inner pages with details and activities on them suitable for these school parties.

Understanding why these pieces were effective could then help you build in some of these key factors in your own final work too..

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TASK 
To be undertaken as specified by your tutor by email.
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1. Look each solution through here and choose THREE people's work to analyse further. Try to pick quite different examples and styles if you can.

2. Save the image(s) you choose to analyse to your desktop by (PC) right-clicking them -or- (Mac keyboard) control-clicking them from this blog post.

3. Create a new post on your learning journal blog titled 'Past Student Work Analysis'.

4. Bring each of the 3x examples of student work images chosen into this post and then answer the following questions about each of them underneath each image..
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QUESTIONS  

(Please write a minimum of a sentence answer for each, simply writing 'I don't know' or leaving the question blank isn't acceptable here - we need your considered thoughts down here please..).  

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A. Suitability for brief: 

Having read the short project summary of the brief that relates to your picture choice, how successfully (or otherwise) do you feel this solution fits the brief? Please explain your answer. 

B. Colourschemes used 

What colourschemes have been used in this solution, why do you think this is? Please explain your answer. 

C. Art style or visual treatments 

What visual 'art style' or treatment has been used here (i.e. diagramatic, pictograms, loose illustrations and/or maybe photographic, vector/flat colour or template mockups maybe)? Do you feel these are appropriate (?) - please explain your answer. 

D. Use of type 

What type styles have been used here? Do you feel these are appropriate (?) - please explain your answer. 

E. Use of corporate ID 

Each solution chosen will have a form of corporate ID across the various elements normally. These may be 'given' ID's or colourschemes/refs as part of the brief (or) ones developed as part of the brief by the students. Do you feel these are appropriate (?) - please explain your answer. 

F. Visual complexity 

Elements on the page or design board.. Some solutions are better as simple but effective solutions, looking at your chosen item do you feel it's 'complexity' of visual elements is appropriate, too complicated or maybe too simplistic? Please explain your answer. 

G. Use of additional photoshop elements 

Does your chosen element or design board use a mockup or photoshop template to help show it in different scenarios in the real world? These can often help best present visuals and (depending on source used) can either be freely aquired or for a small fee. If 'yes' then please explain how these are used and how effective you feel them to be, if 'no' then do you think using these might improve the overall presentation of the final student work? 

            Example: https://mediamodifier.com/free-psd-mockups 

H. Suggested further improvements. 

Looking at the work and having a summary of the brief, do you feel that your chosen element or board could be further improved still? If 'yes' then please suggest how this might be. If 'no' then please explain why you think they've supplied the optimum solution(s). 

Final Overall Q: (Answer this after you've worked through examples from both projects) 

I. Looking at these examples of final student outputs on each brief, do you feel that analysing these further has given you further ideas about final presentation of your own work on this project? Please explain your answer whether yes or no.

Student Work Samples (click on each to enlarge).

Gdes2014 Initial Questions to Client..

 We've had the brief for 2021 and one of the key initial steps is to make sure we understand it fully.. I'll paste here up to 10x key questions that I'll alert the client(s) on. With luck we should be able to paste some feedback here too once the clients have had time to look these through and react.

10x key questions from students

1. 7-11 years, can we choose where we aim for in that age gamut?


-- Absolutely, it’s quite a broad age range so it might be good to aim for either lower or upper end.

2. Is there an expected amount of activities per inner page?


-- I think perhaps a couple of activities per page max.

3. Is there a particular colourscheme you need?


-- No, please feel free to choose your own colour-scheme based on your wider research. It needs to be attractive to children of the age you choose to work to.

4. Do we have access to linked images – i.e. well known people or people or objects linked to the individual maps?


-- No we don’t have this information, but I do have brief info on each of the maps that I can send across to Andy.

5. Can we use characters or avatars with our designs?


-- Yes, that could work well to hook children in.

6. Do you intend for the child to interact with the eBook on it’s own? Or do you intend this to be worked through with parents and/or teachers?


-- I think worked through with parents if you’re choosing the younger age of the spectrum mentioned on the brief.

7. Can we create sub narratives – i.e. little associated stories or fun facts that (might) be the sort of thing you could attribute to a particular map/story.


-- Yes this sounds lovely, but they couldn’t be fictional/made up.

8. Is there a particular style or treatment from past student projects that you particularly liked?


-- Projects that use clear images of the documents (i.e. maps in this case), and get the children using the documents to find out information, appeal to us most.

9. Is there a pref to A4 landscape or A4 portrait formats and why?


-- Either is fine - but you'll fit more content on an A4 portrait sheet as A4 landscape 'spreads' will need a gap in the middle to accommodate the 'spine'.

10. Is there a pref as to what end of the age spectrum we choose?

-- No – choose what you feel most comfortable designing for within the spectrum of ages mentioned in the brief.

GDES2014 - SELECTED FINAL STUDENT SUBMISSIONS

We've had some really lovely submissions this year for the Children's Book Design module and it's thanks in part to our continuing real-life annual collaborations with the National Archives at Kew in London and all their time and feed-in.

With the largest interest and cohorts we've seen to date on this module I've been through outputs and have put a select few here that I feel really captured the brief's asks well in terms of covers and inner spreads.

These are all examples from the 'Significant People' eBook brief set by the National Archives this time.

Well done to the students whose work features below and of course all the other students in the cohort too - some really great work came out of this year's project.

[Click on any image to enlarge]

Kristina Davis

Brenner Dickenson

Florentina Manole

Beth Matthews

Lauren Mealins

Beth Morgan

Rosie Mullender

Callum Summerfield

Hope Whitehouse