Design Principles Reflection

I have worked on the story book called ‘What is this smell?” which is the adventure love story of a boy. The main structure of the story made based on four different parts of my house. The place with lots of electric wires, the place with shining stuff, the place with fragrance, and the place that has been destroyed. I chose those places because those places have lots of potentials which means those places have lots of points that can touch people's imaginations. Those places are common in any homes, but people would not notice it well. Once they notice those parts, it can be transform in any shape and that is why I chose those places that are common places around us.

Initially, I focused more on electric wires. I tried to make the story related to the old tales called blue thread and red thread which is the story that connects people's destiny with strings. I also tried out on the story about a monster that has fur like electric wires. When I had four sections of my house, the first thought I had was the story of a boy finding the meaning of his life. Because it is the story about finding the meaning of the life, I found the story itself was quite hard to explain.

The other option was the love story of the lantern and the power strip. However, the story needed more of explanation which cannot be done in certain pages the lecturer suggested.

That is why I kind of combined those two story to make one. I made an adventure love story based on different places of my house and there are different characters telling different values of the life which is easier topic than meaning of the life. The story begins with a boy who lived harsh life and through his adventure he finds his value which is love, and lives a happy life.

The biggest mistake I had while I made this story book was that I didn’t think about the size of my story book. I just started on making the scene directly without thinking about the what kinds of papers I will use, what kinds of books will be, and what sizes I will use. It was a mess when I started to make the mock up and I couldn’t really find the good size that can fit to my story book so I just used A4 size for my story book. It was okay to use the accordion book style because the colour changes from the dark colours to the bright colours as the story goes, as the main character finds his value so it kinds of shows a good flow of colours throughout the story.

If I chose the size at first, I would make the book small so it is easy to carry around and it can be fit to children's hands size.

For my story book, I focused on using different textures and patterns for my story book to show people to feel the scene too. As I tried out on different pages, I tried out on many layouts that can be more effective and appealing to people. I took photos of the part that shows the textures and did the photo shop a bit so it can be more clear on digital screen. For patterns,I tried to make it that can fit to photos of textures. Initially, I made patterns on the paper but it was quite not clear because it looked weird with photos of textures. Next, I tried out digitally so it can blend well together with photos. It was pretty okay so I just made patterns digitally that can fit to the mood of the scene. It was nice to actually seeing that differences I made throughout the whole process. At first, I tried to make it like collage but the pages were quite messy. After I tried to make the certain shape with those patterns and textures. It worked out pretty okay. The scene looked more neat and it had more white spaces for my texts and characters but it did not really show the collage feelings.

For the character part, I drew it on the paper and scanned it to the laptop to colour it. It had problem because the image of a character had crack at the edge so it looked really messy and unfinished so I just drew the whole thing over the scanned character on the laptop to make it clear.

Also, I gave some slight changes of brightness of colours from the start to the end to show some changes on the main character's personality. Which means that at the first the main character is a bit darker than but at the end the main character found out his value and got brighter.

I actually wanted to have feelings of papers on characters and that was the reason I drew the whole thing on the paper but it didn’t work out well so maybe next time I will try out on making that paper feelings.

For the text, I really had no idea at first. ‘Express the feeling over the text’ was the hardest thing. The problem was that I don’t want to make the scene messy and the scene was already full with pictures of textures and patterns so I just used like the side space. I used mostly 12 font sizes because I thought it is the good size to read. At first, I just used Arial which is the basic font style on the laptop. With the small typography session, I tried out on placing the text in many different areas also I followed certain lines to make it neat. I think ‘imagine there is the line that I have to follow’ helped me a lot to make it more organize.

The next problem was the font. I just used hierarchy of Arial to express different characters’ texts. However, Arial did not have much of that so during the tutorial, the lecturer recommended to use the font Butler so I tried out on that. I would say it was way better than before. I used the regular one for the main boy, used thickest one for the big guy, used light Italic for the tall guy, and used extra light one for the girl. For the narrations, I just used Arial which is the same font with before because I thought it does not need to show emotions.

For the colour of the text, I initially used the colour that is darker or brighter than the back ground so it can be part of the scene. Later, I thought if I use the colour that is similar to the back ground, it would be hard to notify. Also, it would be hard to know which character is saying what. Because it is the conversation between two different characters, I used the skin colour of the character for each of them so it would be easier to know who is talking.

For the cover, I just used Butler font. Also, I added up some smell patterns to give some consistency for my book. Because my book has flow of colours which gets brighter as the story goes, I used the dark purple at front cover and used bright pink at the back cover.

For the package of the book, I thought of an accordian book that can be seen easily around. Later, I found out the package of a brochure and it had the pack that can put the brochure inside. I thought I could use that for my book too. So I applied that to my book cover which means the book cover is the package itself and can put the book inside of the cover.

Overall, there were so many lacking things like the texts, the sizes, and the layout. Maybe next time I could do better on expressing emotions of characters with texts and before I make the real scene, I would work on the size, the texture of the paper, and what kind of types I will make as a book.

I am just overwhelmed that I was able to turn in the finished outcome and that is like the main congrats I will do for myself. It was good experience that I was able to learn new things and apply that into my works to make it better.

References

•beccaallen.co.uk. (n.d.). ba. beccaallen.co.uk. https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/79868593361151991/

•Colorings.net. (n.d.). 4 LESSONS OUR CHILDREN TEACH US ABOUT HAPPINESS. https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/315322411411770976/

•Fr.freepik.com. (n.d.). Téléchargez Maquette Pliée gratuitement. fr.freepik.com. https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/684547212099406799/

•Haifa port. (n.d.). Haifa port Brand new Visitor center. Behance. https://www.behance.net/gallery/10041957/haifa-port

•jsdchamp99.tumblr.com. (n.d.). Alpha Wolf (jacobspencer04). jsdchamp99.tumblr.com. https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/127648970668015131/

•Michelle. (n.d.). THE JOURNAL DIARIES- TINA'S COLLAGE JOURNAL. SEEWEED KISSES. http://www.seaweedkisses.com/2014/11/the-journal-diaries-tinas-collage.html

•PETER D. GERAKARIS. (n.d.). Chartreuse Garden Accordian book. http://www.petergerakaris.com/accordion-books/

•Petits Objets de Compagnie. (n.d.). LEPORELLO, LE LIVRE FRISE… OBJET D’ART… mais pas que…. https://petitsobjetsdecompagnie1.wordpress.com/2017/01/27/leporello-le-livre-frise-objet-dart-mais-pas-que/

•삼성SDI – 메가와트 리플렛. (2015, December 13). X STUDIOS. https://www.coxstu.com/project/samsung-sdi-2/