Overall Evaluation

We initially struggled to find a style that we liked, that looked cohesive, and that would appeal to children. However, we finally figured this out by merging our three best ideas into one and taking inspiration from some TV adverts and the pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. Once we had our concept things started to come together.

We found the critiques where we had to put everything up on the wall and stand back were really helpful for seeing how cohesive our touchpoints were a well as to recognise small details that needed tweaked. We continued to use this technique to evaluate our work throughout the whole process, both in class and during our independent study, and found that it was a very useful tool when refining our final designs.

There were a couple of touchpoints that we found challenging to keep consistent with the other platforms and we learnt a lot about how you can bring the style subtly across without having to use exactly the same elements to link them all together.

In the end we created a convincing and cohesive concept that develops and keeps the user interested throughout the journey.

W6: Independent Study

This week was all about final refinement and getting our work ready to hand-in. We printed our three posters, our flyer, and our costume page on Tuesday and we printed our certificate on Thursday (after spending more time reworking the concept). We kept re-evaluating our website and making tweaks right up until Friday morning so that it is impactful, user-friendly, and cohesive with our other touchpoints.

This week advanced the project as we got all of our touchpoints to a standard where we were ready to hand-in!

W6S2: Class

During class we got technical help from Phoebe on a small issue we were having with the white fade on our posters. Using a feathered brush worked for screen, but when we printed our posters the printer couldn't print the fade. Phoebe showed us the tool to use on Photoshop (Filter-Pixelate-Colour Halftone) to create a fade that the printer could print. We worked on bringing our posters, flyer, and costume page to a standard where they were ready to be printed for the final time as we planned to take them to a professional printing bureau after class. At the end of the session today we all had to present our work on the table. We then had the opportunity to walk around all of the four VCD streams and look at what everyone else had created this term for this project.

Today was quite rushed as we were focused on getting our touchpoints to a print-ready standard, but then we were told (with no prior warning) that we would have to present our work in 15 minutes. This meant that we had to hurry to print something to have anything ready to present at all. We only managed to get our three posters ready to present, but walking around the other classes they had their whole suite of touchpoints presented which we think looked a lot better as you could see how their concept was working across multiple platforms. We wish we would have had warning the day before that half of the time in class would be spent presenting. We then could have worked on what we planned to do in class for homework on Monday night so that we could've then had time to get all of our trans-media platforms ready to present.

W6S1: Class

We had our final one-on-one critique with Tristam and Phoebe. This critique was great as the teachers seemed generally positive about our body of work and seemed to only have minor tweaks/things to reconsider. We then used the rest of class to start making these minor changes in our work.

This made us feel as though we can get this project completed on time and presented to a high standard.

W5: Independent Study

This week was purely about developing and refining our idea. We used techniques such as printing out our whole suite of touchpoints and pinning them up onto the wall to see if we were creating a cohesive concept. We found that this technique of stepping back and looking at your whole body of work really helps you see the weak points in the different mediums. We edited all of our trans-media aspects to a point we we thought we needed further critique from our teachers and our peers in order to move forward.

This week advanced the project in leaps and bounds as we actually have a working website and a full suite of touchpoints that are all looking quite refined.

W5S2: Class

Today we had a one-on-one critique with Tristam and Phoebe. The work that we showed them had progressed quite a bit from the work that we showed during the interim critique based on both the feedback we received and that fact that we were able to meet up and work on the project as a team. Also, at the end of class the teachers went over the hand-in requirements.

This critique was fantastic as it gave us a clear sense of what the teachers thought was working in our concept and what needed to be changed/reconsidered/taken out entirely. This will allow us to move forward with ideas for how to make our work stronger and more cohesive. By reviewing the hand-in requirements for next week it gave us sense of purpose as we were reminded of the goal we are working towards.

W5S1: Class

This class was our second interim critique. We split into groups of three pairs and showed each other our suite of trans-media touchpoints to get feedback/complements/constructive critique on them.We then had time to ourselves to work on our projects in our pairs.

This really helped us as it confirmed the areas that we thought we needed to work on but also reassured us that we were on the right track with our rhetorical approach, style, and appeal to our target audience.

W4: Independent Study - Georgia

For homework this week I developed our ideas (from the critique we got from Phoebe on Tuesday) into a cohesive visual style that incorporated our three best ideas. To help do this I looked into comic book styles and pop art artist references. I then made three posters, a flyer, a cape, a t-shirt, and a website design for interim critique using this visual style. I had to do this mostly by myself as Shelby was away for four days.

This independent work that I completed really progressed our project as we finally had our idea rolled out across all of our trans-media touchpoints. By having the concept on all of the different platforms it made it easier to see what was working and what could be altered to make them more cohesive.

W4: Independent Study - Shelby

This week I made some poster concepts because we were struggling with how to make our background and boy look cohesive. I thought the best way to go about doing this was by looking at different styles yet similar to the original style we discussed.

I also started looking into a basic idea of how we may incorporate the idea of our poster with the layout and content a website needs.