Final Major Project Evaluation

In my brief, I stated that I wanted to celebrate story telling by recreating the book cover of Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology; along with a series of illustrations to introduce each of the Myths. My aim was to get the book cover to reflect the context of the book in a fresh and modern way to try and reflect the way Neil Gaiman writes; which is in a modern and minimalistic way. I feel like I have achieved my goal with the book and illustrations. I have re-designed the book in a new and fresh way with fun, bold colours and smooth lines and shapes. I feel like I achieved a modern approach with the illustrations making them minimalistic and symmetrical to create a kind of pattern out of the stories in the book.

Research:

In my research, I gathered secondary and primary information from multiple sources including museums, books, documentation and online research.

I found that the secondary research really helped me find the modern and minimalistic style of the design I was aiming for, as I found most of the artists I was inspired by from my Pinterest like Studio Feixen and Petros Afshar. I also found a lot of additional information about Norse culture from websites like The Vintage News. This research helped me a lot with finding the style of the design but did not help me with context of the book as much.

The secondary research also helped me with finding the modern and minimalistic font I was aiming for. My Pinterest was used to find the appropriate font that would match the book cover well in style and colour. I did this by finding the fonts that I could experiment with on Photoshop and then proceeded to download the fonts onto my Photoshop. I also found secondary research on the style of Scandinavian art which helped my find patterns for my designs.

I feel like my secondary research was successful as it helped me move forward in my design by giving me the inspiration for the styles and fonts I was aiming for in my designs. However, with my secondary research I struggled to find valid historical facts on the Vikings as the internet can often fabricate information without being checked for being correct or not. The information that I did find from the book about Norse art was limited as it was a book on the history of all art.

For my Primary research, I collected information from the book Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, The Museum of Liverpool and sketchbook work. The museum helped me understand the style of Norse art and how the patterns and imagery represented Viking culture. The photos I took of the artefacts also helped me with the shapes of my design later in the process. However, the information that was provided was limited as there was only one section in the whole museum on the Vikings. I also checked other museums but they had no information on Norse culture or history. I also documented quotes from the book Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. This helped me find visuals to base the illustrations on. This helped me a lot as I was able to connect the illustration to the context of the book. I also documented different styles that ancient Norse art used to decorate

objects like ships, tools and weapons. This helped me, as I was able to find the similarities each pattern had and what kind of style that was being used.

I feel like my Primary research successfully helped me to develop my design as it helped me learn the context of the book well and gain some valid information on ancient Norse art and Mythology that helped me decide what to base my illustrations on.

Design Development:

In my process of developing my design. I experimented with shapes, colours, fonts and composition to develop a design I was happy with.

I experimented with using shapes to create the illusion of different depths and layers in the book cover. I was inspired by the bracelet found in the museum as the irregular shapes and curves would create a nice split in colour and shape on the background of the design. I first tried to design the layer with two separate lines. This wasn’t successful as the shape didn’t flow with the composition and so made the design look disorientated and split up. I then changed the lines into more of a loop so see if the pattern would suit the flow of the design better. This design worked out much better as it was a smoother shape that would achieve visual balance with the colours of the design.

I also experimented with colour and font in order to achieve a bold, modern and fun appearance to the design. I tried out using bright colours that would contrast each other in order to achieve a striking design that would stand out from the rest. I decided to use white for my font to create the contrast of the bold and colourful background; this as a result, made the font stand out as the main piece of the book cover.

However, the bold colours with the illustration were starting to look flat and I wasn’t getting the layered effect that I was aiming for. So, I decided to add a drop shadow onto the green shape to add depth and dimension. This also defined the different shapes and lines in the design.

For the story illustrations, I experimented with symmetry to create a clean and minimalistic design that would contrast the book cover. I decided to have the Odin as the centre piece of each design so each design would relate to a common theme.

One problem that I had with the illustrations was determining how much detail would be too much detail. The way I solved this was to de clutter the designs down to the most minimalist form to create a simple and clean design that will match the modern style I’m aiming for.

Methods of Working:

I wanted to use a digital approach to produce my design. I decided to use this method when I began to develop my ideas from the thumbnails to the product. I felt like producing my design using digital methods like photoshop and illustrator would help me make designs with precision and accuracy when using methods like symmetry and developing line work. I feel like the outcome of my designs when using illustrator were very satisfactory. The designs were symmetrical and neat, and I could edit them at any time without tarnishing the accuracy of the designs. When using photoshop, I could compose the book cover with ease and accuracy as well as arranging the displays of my designs accurately with the right measurements of paper sizes.

However, I found it difficult to organise the layers of my designs as multiple designs would often be on the same document; this resulted in my document getting crowded and unorganised at times. So, I would file each design away and label each file so I would be able to identify each design. This as a result, would get quite time consuming and could distract me from developing the designs.

In the future, what I would

Final Outcomes:

My initial statement was to create a design that celebrates the art of storytelling, by re-designing Neil Gaiman’s ‘Norse Mythology’ in a modern and bold way. I feel like I have achieved those aims trough my designs as my book cover and story illustrations are inspired by contemporary, modern artists and are coloured with bright and bold colours to create a contemporary and fun style to the design.

As a body of work, I feel like it is successful as each of the designs are connected to each other through context, colour scheme and visuals so I feel like all my designs correlate with each other. I also feel that I have achieved my aim in making a modern design that is clean and minimalistic using symmetry and digital design like illustration and photoshop.

One of the changes I made in my project was to design the story illustrations, as I was originally only going to design the book cover. It was advised that I wouldn’t have a sufficient amount of work to display if I only produced a book cover, and so the illustrations of the stories would develop a variety of designs to display. My piers stated that my design is putting mythology in a new and modern light that could attract a variety of different demographics.

I feel satisfied with the final outcome of my designs, as they have the qualities that I aimed for as well as the designs visualising the beauty of storytelling.

Project Management:

I planned my time in college and at home through the use of documentations like project schedules and weekly aims as a guide to help me with my project. For the most part, I kept to the schedules and weekly aims, however, some of the tasks that I assigned myself would take longer than expected and so would have to move my schedules forward a little in order to finish the task properly.

Staff:

One of the ways my tutors guided me through the project, was through a mid-project review where they would assess the work that I had produced and gave me advice on how to improve the work I

had currently produced and how to begin the next task on the agender. This helped me a lot as I was able to get a sense of the direction I was traveling in and how to improve my work to the highest ability. We were also given guidelines to help us when filling out documents like project schedules and weekly aims to make sure that we were given all the information that was needed to have useful documents to guide us along the way.

This advice and guidance benefited my project a lot as I was able to confidently move from task to task with a sense of what I was developing and designing.

Additional Development/Improvements:

After evaluating my final body of work and how it came together, I identified that the development process was quite successful and was done efficiently and accurately. However, I feel like I struggled with the development process for the thumbnails of the design as it was difficult to create a modern design from the context of Ancient Norse mythology.

If I could re-work any section of my project, I would re-work the primary research as I feel like if I had more time, I could explore different places and seek out more primary information about Norse mythology and culture.