after effects induction. 29/11/11

the basics, getting started.


unlike usual adobe programmes you go to compositions, new composition begin.

Then you come faced with a pop up menu, which is similar to other programmes just like choosing a paper size resolution and that. Choose your format which in the UK we use 'PAL', document size, background colour

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Creating a shape, layer, new, solid. Set the shape size and colour.

end of module self evaluation.

End of module self evaluation

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

One thing i felt i have really developed on is research, i have never really spend too much time before researching however with this brief we was pushed to research more and more to strengthen  and strengthen our ideas, which was really beneficial in the end. It left me with an exact view of how i wanted my product to look after all the developing and further research using similar pieces of art to influence my design ideas, whereas usually i would just go into a brief with an idea and pretty much start making it not exactly knowing where it is going. I feel i definitely need to get more into the research element in the future to push and push my design work. Throughout the module we gained a massive knowledge of print and print processes, which i have tried to apply to my final outcome, using as many print processes as possible within the time limit. Learning about print will surely be very useful in the future as their is so many crucial things i was not aware or when designing to for print and also so many print finishes and processes i can apply to my design work to further improve them and improve them.

What approaches to methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Well the 150 logo task was a killer, it showed me what i am able to do in such a short period of time, and i applied this to my outcome, choosing to produce filled with detailed illustrations took along time to do but i was able to fit in all the ideas i had within my book. 

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

One strength which i noticed was my typography and layout skills, being mainly an illustrative designer i dont tent to spent too much time with type and layout, however i chose to look at publishing and editorials to change this a bit and push myself out of my comfort zone, which actually seemed to turn out for the best because i realised the things i was doing with type were actually quite nice and something i will definitely be using in the future.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I think i need to pay allot more attention to details, allot of things went wrong within the book which could of easily been avoided if i had been more careful and spent more time organising things. 

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. get motivated from the start, at the start i wasnt too motivated and things started to snowball on me leaving me trapped towards the end of the module.

2. Blog at least 2 hours everyday.

3. Start the development earlier and dont get caught up on it.

4. plan things before going into them, i began the design for my book before i worked out the binding which kind of left me stuck towards the end when it came to printing and choosing a binding method.

5. be more organised.

Attendance  4

Punctuality  4

Motivation  3

Commitment  3

Quantity of work produced  2

Quality of work produced  4

Contribution to the group  5

final presentation boards

Final presentation boards.

finished book.

finished book, printed and binded.
i am quite happy with the way it turned out in the end, was quite stressful and allot more time consuming that i thought it would be putting it all together, finishing all the designs, all the printing and binding. Very stressful aswel, however the final outcome i feel works very well. It answers the brief by using as many print methods as i could fit in the book within the time limit, it is also put together well and looks really professional.

One thing i would of liked to do if i had time would be to screen print the description on the back, just to finish off the book niceley and make it feel like a real book. It would of also allowed me to use the screen printing facilities and maybe test around with different inks on different stocks.

duoplexing

another print finish i added to my book was duoplexing, even though i didnt really have any choice, the stocks had to be stuck together anyway, however i decided to stick a middle green stock in between the two stocks and the effect it had was quite nice. Basically i had the varnished page of my book printed on black card to really make the varnish stand out which had to be stuck back to back with the original antique white stocks which runs through the book, so by playing a piece of green card in between the two i left a really interesting finish to the two pages. 

binding

originally i had hoped to finish the book off with a perfect hard back book bind however because of the content of the book this was not possible. To finish off with a perfect bind you had to either have the book paginated so like the first and last page was on the same a3 sheet of paper cut down and it ran like that through to the centre, or the pages had to be similar to this but ran in groups of 4 throughout the book. However because i was printing on 3 different stocks and the acetate pages had to be single sided the book had to be be laid out page by page, so like page 2 was on the back of page 1 and 4 was on the back of page 3 and each double sided page was laid on top of each over separately and the bind ran though each page top to bottom. Which was pretty annoying because i couldnt get a professional looking bind like i had hopes to, the bind still worked really well however and i am happy with the was it turned out. In the end i settled on using japanese stitch bind which seemed most appropriate for the book i had planned to make and the options i had.

These are some of the binds which i has hoped to create.

this perfect bind was what i had planned to do which i think would of really finished my book off nicely, leaving it looking very professional however this is what i had to settle with.. the japanese stitch bind.

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lazer cutter and re-embossing

because my last attempts at embossing didnt really turn out as i'd hoped i tried again using a different process, using the template cut out by hand was too messy and too difficult to get neat enough to template to get a decent transfer when embossing. Luckily i knew a few people from woodwork so i could swing it to let them quickly induct me on the lazer cutter so i could get a neat template. The lazer cutter is one of the most facinating things ive seen, wish their was enough time to get to use it some more within the module, could see some real potential in my design work if i use this in the future.
On the second try the template turned out just as id hoped and i was able to get the embossing on the front of the book just like i had planned to.

i created a couple of small hard back samples to test the embossing on before going for my cover to make sure i got it right, good job i did this really because it took a while to set the machine up propperly and on the first attemp some of the dirt from the template transferred onto the bukrum leaving a messy finish so to get around this i placed a small piece of tissue paper between the template and the book.

Really happy with the way this turned out, possibly the best thing about the book, left a really nice interesting unique finish.

spot varnishing

Another print finish i planned to include in my book was spot varnishing, the facilities to do the actually spot varnishing process was fully booked so we found a way around it, in a similar way to the foil pressing, i basically bought some clear foil and used the heat press to transfer it onto the stock, the effect it has turned out really nice, pretty much similar to if i had used the actually spot varnish facilities so i was pretty happy with it.

STAMP

with the lazor cut logo that i used for embossing i thought it might double up as a stamp also which i could up within my work so i gave it a go, didnt quite work as i thought it would however still left some interesting impressions on the paper but didnt quite work well enough to use within my project.

finished book ready for print.

the finalised layout of the book, all layed out so it can be printed correctly and laid out to make a book.

how to print the book.

one thing i was really struggling with was how to print the book for binding,
I went and spoke to max to see how he would go about it seen as he had printed his book a couple of days earlier,
the thing i was struggling with was the acetate pages in the middle, how to print the book in a way where the acetate would be blank on the back and still be in order to bind.
Basically the book has to have 8 pages in the middle all in acetate all not double sided printed which confused the hell out of me.
We had a go at paginating the book on indesign but this is how it turned out...

..which wouldnt really work because as you can see their would be a print on the back of the acetate so that was out of the window. Still with no idea how to go about this i went and spoke to mike up in the mac suite who helped me sort it out,
basically before printing we had to work out how big the book has to be and how it would be binded, i wished to do a perfect bind however it would not be possible in order to get the acetate included in their. I also had to scare the book down slightly in order to reduce the print stock so each page could be printed on a4 instead of a3, because of the books size being 210mm by 210mm if it was printed a3 some of the bleed would run off the page and when crop marks are added as a guide for when it is cut out the size would have to be reduced.
So we solved this puzzle by printing each page on by one double sided, with page 2 being on the back of page 1 and so out, so each sheet of paper had a page on each size and when laid ontop of each other would make a book, with the bind running through every page.
We had to print each page up to the acetate then print the acetate pages separately single sided and put them together.
Printing a 70 page book on your own stock feeding each page through one by one takes about 2 hours, also it annoys everyone else in the mac suite waiting to print.

a little help from joe.

before printing my finished book i was a little stuck on the last little bit, basically i felt like the book help enough content however i wasnt sure how to finish it off. Wether it needed more pages or more illustrations, however the where i was stuck was, the final pages i would be adding i would of liked working with photographs and type working with different layouts, the problem being that if i added these pages it wouldnt necessarily flow with the rest of the book, the design would change and it would seem like you are pretty much turning the page to a completely new book.
Joe was very helpful here, she agreed with what i was saying that by adding these pages and working in a different style it wouldnt fit in with the rest of the book and wouldnt really work, however to try mocking up a few pages to see how it looks.
She also gave me a few other things to think about,
-some of the pages the minimalist compositions wernt really very minimal and need tweeking
-consider the binding of the book before finalising the design because with a hard back book and perfect binding the pages have to printed in a certain order. 
-label the minimalist styles used to further educate people on minimalism.
-finalise a target audience, am i trying to educate or entertain.

Allot to think about but very helpful to get me on the way to finishing this module.


i quickly tried a few more layouts of the page she mentioned to see if i could improve it before going to print.