July 2021

6^th July 2021

With my essay reworded and submitted I have spent several days trying to produce a front cover.  I knew that I wanted to keep the design simple and clean, nothing too fussy so I started by taking the title and producing a print on card that I could cut out and make a stencil:

I didn’t want to apply to the front cover without trying first so on scrape material I first tried matt paint using a cotton bud, then a make-up sponge and then a brush.  The results were not good as the paint bleached under the card and the edges were very messy:

So off to the local stationary/art shop to find an alternative.  Can across a metallic pen, in a grey tone suitable for all types of surfaces and also a set of stencils is a plastic material.

Tried free hand to see if that worked – but wasn’t happy with style but liked the result of the pen:

Decided to then look at using the stencils that I had purchased.  Thick these might work even though the font type isn’t the same as that of the first page:

The ink doesn’t seem to run on the gloss surface of the cover and provided I can produce a nice straight line across the front I think it will work.

8^th July 2021

Change in plan for the front cover! Decided to hide the title within a folded envelop to give the impression of going inside.  This I think I could develop further but at this stage I think it will work:

Cutting the envelop:

Folding

Adding Title

Final front cover:

As part of my submission, I have decided to also video the book.  Not as easy as first assumed.  Have seen lots on line and from other students who use their mobile phones but I opted to use the video function on my camera – which involved reading the manual and then getting the tripod set up and some additional lighting.

Video set up:

On viewing the video – several takes, false starts and adjusting lighting I noticed that I needed to change two of the pages.  One containing an image that on feedback had been suggested I remove/replace as the sun was falling directly on the subjects’ nose and one page to correct a minor text error.  I made the changes and these have been sent to my friend to print, will then replace and try the video again.

11^th July 2021

As previously stated, I have set up a new website that provides images that didn’t make the final selection, a video of the final set and now I have up-loaded the video of the mock book.  On the whole I’m pleased with how the re-edit has turned out.  I think the set is a lot stronger.  There were some hard decisions to make around the images to remove and those to keep.  Sending the series to my peers and several professional photographers wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I learnt a lot.  The result retains the narrative I wanted to achieve.

Website link here

17^th July 2021

I have been thinking about the final submission and thought that there needed to be a page on my blog that gave an overall summary and a link to the new website as I don’t expect the assessors to read all of this part of the blog – they just don’t have the time, so I have added a summary page that can be found here.  This gives a brief overview and the direction to the website.

I have also made a few changes; made a separate page that provides and introduction to the project as the original text was way too small to read.