Gdes3004 Wk 5 Blog Task: Make One of Your Chosen Recipes

Here's an example of me documenting myself making the 'Local Food Lunches' Purple Sprouting Broccoli recipe.

Examples of student work returned (this to be added to further):

Hannah Wood

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Andy: I think you've worked in some lovely ideas here Hannah. It's clear, the well-numbered steps are clearly separated and legible, the photography is appropriate and compliments the wording well. I really like the focus you've made on food miles and the associated graphical treatment too. A great piece of early work in this genre.

Sarah Kimbrey

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Andy: Some great photography here Sarah - lovely short depth of field shots, clear staging of imagery, like the informal-looking annotations too and linking arrows etc. Job well done in respect of this task!

Megan Feeley

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Andy: Like the 'polaroid' treatment here Megan and the idea of informally pinning/sticking a recipe to a corkboard etc. Clear staged imagery and you've also managed to summarise the process in the original recipe somewhat too. I think there's room to do this but it may need some kind of user testing to ascertain if the level of detail is still appropriate to effectively tackle the task.. Some nice early work though..

GDES3004 Welcome and Last Year's Students / Their Project

Welcome to the new cohort(s) this year for the Gdes3004 Children's Book Design module.. This is (still) a growing area in publishing and employs a range of graphic designers in various roles within the industry and as freelancers. This year we're helped-out by Lynda Murray on thursday evenings. Lynda has also worked within the children's publishing industry and will also be helping us out on the annual module trip to the London Book Fair in early April this year.

Student comments:

“This module and project has both widened my knowledge and introduced me to key considerations in children’s picture book design and has enabled me to understand why they are so important… I have enjoyed this module immensely and feel that with that learnt I will be able to take forward in my illustrative practise and build on this in the future.” 

“The module has given me a completely new perspective on design in the method of designing for children. This audience is more versatile than any other user group I have ever designed for and getting into the mind set and really trying to think about what a child would find interesting was incredibly challenging to begin with. However appropriate research into child behaviour, learning styles, mentality, testing and even getting my hands dirty my self, aided this development.”

Samples of last year's student work:

Sample cover page.

Sample inner page spread.

Sample inner page spreads.

Sample cover/mockup

Sample inner page spread.

Students Aim to Spark Interest in the Natural World

Designs from graphics student Tom Game

(This is a copy of a UW News Article)
Graphic Design students from the University of Worcester have been working alongside a children’s author on a project designed to encourage children’s engagement with nature.

The students were asked to research and develop graphical solutions to help authors Gyles Morris and John Cook – of rural studies centre Naturesbase – to create an activity book that would appeal to school age children.

The concept for the book came about in response to growing discussion linked to ‘nature deficit disorder’- a condition associated with British children losing touch with the natural world.

Author Gyles explains: “All of the recent research into children’s lifestyles points to the remarkable collapse of their engagement with nature and the huge reductions in time and growing restrictions on playing outdoors. Growing numbers of children are missing out on the real experiences of the natural world and the awe and wonder of being amongst trees, wildlife and landscapes.”

After spending time at the University and continually monitoring the students’ progress, Gyles and his team are now in the process of reviewing the various student submissions, and he believes that the link-up between Naturesbase and the University has been successful.

He adds: “The collaboration between our rural studies centre and the Graphic Design & Multimedia course has been an exciting one and especially informative, with the project now ready to go to the next stage.”

Senior Lecturer in Design, Andy Stevenson, says that the project has been beneficial to his students in a number of ways:

“The subject matter has touched on various areas including sustainability, learning activity design and methods to help re-engage primary age children with their natural environment.”

He continues: “It’s been a great collaboration to undertake and Gyles’ workshop earlier in the year took the students out of the classroom and made them really think again about the value of their outdoor environment.”

Visiting Lecture from Gyles Morris - Children's Educator and Author

Gyles looks over your visual stories.

Third year children's book design students at the University of Worcester had a visit today from children's author and educator Gyles Morris. 

Gyles demonstrated a range of the practical techniques he uses to help engage schoolchildren with the outdoors. The visit comes on the back of him setting the students a brief to design a set of 'working prototype' page spreads and covers for a book of the same nature. One of the drivers for this brief is the recent research into 'Nature Deficit Disorder' which seeks to better understand why children are becoming more and more distanced from the outdoors and the natural world.

The students will be arriving at their final ideas in mid may 2013, these will then be looked over by Gyles and his co-author once marked. There's the very real likelyhood of one or more of the students being offered the possibility of completing the work and taking their ideas to a final state in readiness for publication.

Download In Studio Talk from Gyles (130Mb, .mp3)

Useful Outdoor Ref Book Found

I recently bought a copy of the Pedlars' book of the Great Outdoors which is a great little book and wholly appropriate to mention as a research ref with the Gdes3004 brief in mind.. In it you'll find refs to outdoor activities such as tree climbing, raft building, archery, how to make a catapult as well as loads of other activities.. It's also part recipe book too with loads of simple fireside outdoor recipes that are aimed at children from about 12 upwards and their parents.

Book features (aside from fab contents..) inc: Hardback cover, rounded corners on cover and pages, a 'notes' lined section between each chapter to use as needed and an elasticated strip fastened to the back cover which slips over the whole book to keep it together in transit or rucsack.

Here's a couple of pics.. A great ref text if you're still looking for example content for your spreads (naturally this will relate more to those who are using a slightly older age range as their audience). the illustrations are more oriented to parents and pretty basic as such - this aspect can be made much more dynamic though..

Gdes3004: Lovely Initial Student Ideas Ongoing

I'm going to put up some of the great examples of ongoing student ideas in this post.. There was a range of really great ideas and early thinking exhibited this week and I'm keen that others see examples of good practises and different approaches..

Flick: Journal research and associated notes.

Flick: Initial ideas and early sketch concepts.

Flick: Great early research examples in journal.

Rossouw: Some great initial thinking and 3x possible treatments..
Liking the messy play ideas in particular.. :)

Adam's experiments with pop-ups 01

Adam's experiments with pop-ups 02

An example of Adam's initial supporting sketches.

Wk5 Added Features Analysis Task

Now we've talked through some of the different ways in which children of different ages learn, we'd like you to undertake some basic analysis of example books with added features and put your thoughts (as pairs) in the 'comment box' under this post.

Please make sure that you've downloaded the .pdf of the presentation first as reference and then format replies as follows:

• Name of pair
  
• Name of book looked at & Author, Publisher(*repeat this per book you look at first).
  
• Describe the content of the title, the format of the book and any added features you think are being used.
  
• In relation to the information provided in the Powerpoint/.pdf (about the way in which children learn), describe how the added features and/or format might enhance the content of the book for the child. Please make sure you explain 'why' you think this.
  
• List the senses that have been stimulated and describe how the format / design does this - please make sure you explain 'why' you think this.
  
• Do you consider this an appropriate way to present the content (if ‘yes’ then why?). If ‘no’ discuss why and suggest an alternative approach. 

* Note down your responses, return the book and repeat the above with a different title. Make sure that you look at a minimum of three titles between you.