Final editing

So much work to do..

Critique again in class and discovered that my Pegasus Books page was a bit too yuck and old and I had to tone it down so it had more of a flow to the brochure. 

Also wasn't a huge fan of my front cover - which is fair enough because it was a bit boring. I've experimented some more and I think these will be my finals. -Well they have to be because I'm handing in soon! :"(

The map I really love. I do love the colours and flow of this work. 

My other pages:

A good map!!

I don't know how I did this...

The black map on the left was  stamped out of texture from the right. Its perfect! It needs text obviously but this will suit my brochure a lot more than that Google maps rip off I did. 

My "attempt" at a map

I thought going onto Google maps and just editing the colour and putting the shops logos on top would be a good idea... I knew this is my worst spread so far but I didn't know how to fix it until critique with my teachers.

So also my key area is too big as well I just noticed.
I went to class and he did say this was my worst one -which is fine. I really need honesty. I have to make my own  map (HOW???) and stylize the logos of the shops if I want to keep them in there. I think ill leave them out because It looks a bit tacky...

This is just a big mess.

More and more working on this

Am I the only one that is struggling with this??

I brainstormed some more and came up with these:

These are my spreads for the actual book stores. I am really happy with them and how they get more grungy as they go on. I want to know what my teacher thinks so.

I really need to get a move on and work on my covers, introduction page and my chosen page. I have no idea what to do for my chosen page!

Attempting more styles and also combining some too

This is Challenging

We had critique in class where we had to talk to people who hadn't seen our work before. This was so helpful because they were "fresh eyes" and Jamie (my partner) wasn't shy in telling me what I should change or keep.
Karl came and helped us too. And we discussed the idea of the book shops going in the order of newer to older. So it would progress nicely and have a good visual flow. I attempted this as well as other styles at home.

My First outcomes: 

The top left is for Unity Books. I wanted to give off a more clean and professionally look in this one and used minimal colour and texture to show this. I drew a plan of of it in my book first but I feel both are different but successful.

The other two designs are for Pegasus Books, which is older book shop and sells only second hand books. I went with the idea of making it look like a book also. I combined my own imagery with it too to give it interest and a less formal feel. Over all I'm not amazingly impressed with any of these designs.

Definitely on a roll

Finally getting into it

Tried merging the two designs together after I had played around with the water colour themed mock up. I came up with this. 

I turned out better than I expected but it still needs work. Over all I'm happy with my process today.

G-Unit out.

Turn On My Music and...

Funny how music can calm a stressed mind and force you to work

Only a few hours later(?) and I'm on a roll and feeling a lot more comfortable with my work. I've completed 5 mock ups and I'm really happy with two of them and how I could push them further. 

My first mock up: I focused on the watercolour textures and line of the work. 

My strong points: The colours, textures and use of research drawing I completed a while back.
Low points: Can't see the image too well -although that could be effective and draw the eye to textures and the feel of the work and also to the text. 

My second mock up: Experimenting with shapes, layers and scale. 

Strong point: The shape and the repeating of the image I like. I like the "reflection" one underneath it. I also like the outer rings that are lighter or darker. 

Low Point: I think it would be hard to incorporate all the book shops with this effect on one page because it is a busy design when others are added. 

Over all I am pleased with my progress so far. I was thinking of somehow combining these two mock up ideas somehow. Maybe having a slightly textured background and edited the colours of the photos to the first mock up colour scheme. 

G-Unit out 

I feel so behind.

Its because I am...

I have totally caught up with the book work but I have only completed one mock up so far but I am finding it hard to get "into the zone" and complete more. It doesn't help that tomorrows class is one on one with the tutors. I am so out of my comfort zone with this project. Which I suppose is good and I need to get used to it. 

I'm starting to feel the stress creeping up. 

Research Presentation

Trying to decide what Book shops to choose for my project

I gathered a lot of research over the week but after the class on Monday (3/3/14) I felt like I needed more visual research. I had collected some book marks and flyers but I hadn't drawn any of my spaces of taken any photos either. I will complete this tomorrow so I have more ideas to play around with. 

I got a little confused with the mock up idea we had to do. Do we just play around with what we think looks good/portrays the feel of our chosen places or do we try and organize our visual research into a brochure now? I didn't even know we had to do these mock ups in class until I read the course outline on stream just now. 

I am feeling extremely behind in my work already. It doesn't help that I didn't complete my homework (continue rendering mock ups, finding design examples and printing them on A3) that was due in today either. I am feeling lost because I don't know what final bookstores I've picked either. 

Can I pick Graphic comic book store, Pulsar Max comic book store and the library (which also contains comics and manga books)? I need to email one of my tutors... I think I'll do that now.

G-Unit out.

New Research

Research Outside Brain and Computer

On Monday after our first lesson, I had gone home and brainstormed like crazy. I wasn't struggling to think of book shops -I know many- I just couldn't remember the name of any! I had brainstormed about the ones I could remember then looked in the phone book to see what else there was. So many I had never even heard of. So I researched all of them online and brainstormed about the ones that had websites -or only the ones that had decent websites.

Two pages of mind maps later, I still felt I hadn't done enough. I knew I had to visit the book shops but I don't have much time after uni, with work and all that. On Friday 28th February, I walked around Wellington casually, not on a huge mission for this project but it was the best idea to have a snoop around. I had completely forgot about Graphic and Pulsar Max because I only associated them as comic/manga book shops, I wrote down notes and went in to check them out.

At Pulsar Max the guy was incredibly helpful and had a huge knowledge of his shop. I love that shop anyway and know they sell manga, comics, figurines, toys, cards and games but I wasn't sure of their schedule of their card and gaming events they hold weekly. Unfortunately he said them too fast so I couldn't remember but he said to like the page on Facebook and they post updates of their events. I wanted to note this down because not many book shops have events like these.

I collected a flyer from Pulsar Max and Arty Bees (a second hand book shop -the shop assistant was also incredibly helpful, giving me a map with other labelled second hand book shops on it). I was going to throw these away but realized while looking over my research that night, that this is part of the process and that I should also collect other book shop's flyers.

On Monday or Tuesday, I collected a Massey free magazine and found an advertisement for Bennets Bookstore. Their website in my opinion was hard to follow so I never really understood what they specialized in. But in this advertisement it states it clearly ("New & Secondhand Textbooks" and "Art Supplies & Stationary"). I stuck that in my book because it was so helpful.

I got home on Friday and asked my brother what book shops he knew in Wellington, just in case I had missed any. He wrote a list and labeled next to them which ones were the best new books book shop and best second hand book shop. I thought this was interesting as it gives an opinion which other research I did, doesn't.

Over all I felt I have succeeded well with this research. I wish I had more time to go into Wellington in the weekend to collect flyers again, but I feel I do know a lot about these book shops now.

On another note, at Pulsar Max I got tempted to buy a new deck of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and eventually gave in... I'm happy though because now I have the Blue Eyes White Dragon I've wanted for a while. I actually have two now.

G-Unit out.

I feel like a twit using Twitter

-If you pardon the pun

On Monday I decided to go onto my old Twitter account and delete everything embarrassing on it before I use it for my uni work. I don't understand anything of it -yet. I used to use it just to look at artist G-Dragon's tweets but even then I hadn't logged on in about a year. 

I managed to post a tweet with the hashtag (did you know its actually called a octothorpe?) #coca257 saying: "I really don't know how to use Twitter." and attached a photo of a sad looking G-Dragon and got a reply from Karl saying I seemed to have the idea, so I feel like he is very supportive. 

I don't know if you can "follow" a hashtag  or how to put hashtags in our blogs too... I would like to be able to see the #coca257 tweets on my homepage but I'm a long way from learning how to do that. I feel like I will get frustrated with this site quickly.

I'm still struggling to figure out how to log off Twitter...

G-Unit out.

My First Blog Experience

Changing my Mind and then Changing it Again

I never know how to start writing an essay and so when it comes to writing my first blog entry, it seems that even though this is a more informal way of writing, I find it more challenging. Maybe it's because I know everyone in my class can read this but it is mostly because I am afraid of posting something silly or something I consider "stupid". But in saying that, our tutor Karl Kane said today that what we might consider to be an idea that will take us no where, might in fact be one that could help us discover other fantastic ideas hiding in our head. I want criticism of my ideas and work to push myself to do better and the best I can - as long as along with the criticism, they discuss with me solutions or strong points of my work.

I completed my tables yesterday about the Destination/Activity set but I got confused with the forth row: "Three secondary communication points relevant to all destinations or activities within the set". What? Yes, I did listen in class on Monday but I was completely lost. I filled out the rest of the table and asked the tutor helper Phoebe Smith before class started what it meant. After an explanation I was back on track and ready to discuss my ideas in our groups. I had originally picked Gyms of Wellington but when the gyms I picked weren't different enough (Jetts, Configure Express & Lesmills) I found I wasn't as keen on the subject as I wasn't really "into" these new types of gym ideas I had been introduced into. So I discussed one on one with Phoebe again about my other ideas. She liked my idea of cinemas and I did too. The uniqueness of the Paramount Cinema showing not only Art House films but also Foreign films, really interested me because those are the types of movies my I am very much interested in. But when I found other cinemas weren't as unusual or even that different from each other I decided to go with my third idea: Bookshops of Wellington.

I am keen on this subject and my brother is also a keen second hand book buyer. So with my research I could ask him where book shops are and other queries. Tonight I researched more bookshops in Wellington and found some interesting ones. One of them included a Catholic Bookstore. I think I will go with this one because its very different and seems extremely exclusive yet they portray themselves as extremely keen to get new people into their community.

Next I will pick my final three book stores and visit them before class next week to gather more research and talk to the staff at the shops.

Gin Sparrow