Evaluation

At the end of this project, I have created a visitor’s pack aimed at children for the Sea Life Centre. It is made up of five items, the bag included. I have created a map which presents the different areas of the Sea Life Centre in a colourful way with an interactive side as the visitors can complete a quiz on the back of it. I have also created a name plaque which adds a bit of a souvenir touch to the pack and that the pack is aimed for use outside of the Centre as well as inside. The bag design is also quite colourful which attracts the visitors to the pack. The hat also reflects my pirate theme which is one of the 3 themes I decided to choose but I decided to pursue the pirate theme as I felt I could also be more creative with it.

To make the map, name plaque, hat I used a layered card technique before scanning each piece and printing them onto card. I chose the card as it’s a strong material and also when printed on has a glossy touch, making my final outcomes appear quite professional. For the hat and the map, the strength of the card was very important as I wanted them to have long life endurance as these would be the most handled items. I have kept to my colour palette however, the only exception to this was the map where I used contrasting colours to help make the map eye-catching.

I am pleased with my final outcome, I think that each piece looks great and it has come together really well. I really like the hat as it looks really good and it also fits very well despite the fact that I had to print it smaller than I wanted as I had no access to a large printer. I think that the most successful part of the project was my ability to use different skills to create a detailed and professional set of outcomes, using skills that I would not usually use and are my weakest; here it was the making of the doll as I am not very skilled at using a sewing machine. The least successful part of the project is the lack of items in my pack. There were a lot of items that I listed as parts of my pack that I did not make, for example the eye patch and because of this I think that my pack is not as full as I would have liked. I should have also created a guide to the key creatures at the Centre, using illustrations to present the animals. If I had more time, these items would have been made.

I think that if I started the project again I think that I would research more ideas surrounding animals below the sea. I quite liked the idea of creating a scuba diving business and creating promotional pieces for this business. My project was heavily influenced by a handful of artists and the main artist would be Rachael Wilson, whose intricate style I adopted for creating many parts for my pack. I think that another major influence came from Andrew Groves without whom, my map would not be as unique and colourful as it is.

Word count: 552

The Making Of – Map

I had decided that after many shape designs that a treasure chest shape would be the most appropriate for my map design. I really liked this idea because of its link to my pirate theme and I could also play with the shape of it and use different colours on it. The inside of the map is what I struggled to design. I noted down that there were 12 different “zones” or “areas” that I went through when I visited the Sea Life Centre and I would have to create 12 different icons for this but make the map look like a treasure map. This for me was not a problem however the layout of the icons on the page and also  the obscurity of my chosen shape, meant that I would have to be very careful with sizing and placement as I also had to place text on map to help show which “zone” the visitor was in. I found Andrew Groves an artist whose style I immediately liked, and this influenced and inspired my map design. I loved his colour choice, not picking dark colours to make his work stand out. I also liked his use of lines to create waves and I thought that this could be very useful for my map.

I used gouache paint to paint my map and I adopted Rachel Wilson’s style for the creatures on the front of the map. I used acetate to put the answer boxes and the animals on so that it looked clean and tidy. I like the final outcome as the inside contrasts the outside in colour and it is the perfect size as when it opens it is not too big or too small.

http://www.andrewgroves.co.uk/

Word count: 279

The Making OF – Name Plaque

Although this idea was not one of my original ideas for the bag, I decided to create a name plaque for children to place on their bedroom door. I thought that this was a good idea as this item can be seen as a souvenir from the pack, rather than an interactive item used around the Sea Life Centre. The plaque is designed to allow the children to wrote their own name on the plaque to make it personal to them. I started off by keeping the shape of the plaque quite simple: rectangular. I thought that this would make the plaque easy to get in and out of the bag that I would later design. I found that this item was very simple to design and create and I think that it has worked really well. I did not struggle with any part of the design and I think that because I enjoyed making this item, it has turned out very well. I really like the colours that I have chosen here as they all work well together. I think that I would have preferred to have had the tentacles coming off the page a bit more and maybe having some of the letters caught up in them to make the outcome a bit more exciting.

Word Count: 219

The Making Of – Hat

I decided to use the template of the hat I received from the Sea Life Centre as I felt that it was the perfect shape and size. I first drew around the hat and applied colour using gouache.  I chose this media as it dries as a solid colour which is what I wanted for my hat. I also chose the colour blue as I wanted all of the colours to be part of the same colour palette: red, blue and yellow, just like my logo. I created a dark blue for the colour of my hat and it works  well as it is not too dark so that it looks almost black but also light enough so that any items that I put on top of the colour will show up. When I researched previous hat designs, I found two designs. I really liked the stitch marks on one of the hat designs and I thought that they would look good on my hat design. I also really liked the anchor design on the other design, which I felt would work really well considering that my design was very plain with just a logo on it.

Overall, I am very happy with the outcome as it works really well as a design and also the colours I have used also work really well together. I also like the text I have put on the back of the hat as I felt that the back was a bit plain and therefore I came up with the slogan “What will you discover?”. I will try and use this slogan when it is appropriate on my outcomes.

Word count: 275

 

The Making Of – Doll

I decided to turn my pirate character into a soft toy as I felt that I needed some variety in my pack. I created a template by using the character design I had created. This involved a circle for the shape of the head (although the head is not this shape, I felt it was simpler for me to make my doll to good quality with the head as a shape of a circle), a rectangular shape for the body, arms and also the legs. I found a similar template to help me in a toy book I had at home; this really helped me when I was making my doll. I also had to make my own coat for the pirate, however I had to create a template for it. I felt that making the coat was perhaps the hardest part of making the doll and I found that sewing the sleeves on was particularly difficult. I found that by putting the sleeves on the character and then sewing the sleeves onto the coat in that way was easier. Apart from this, the rest of the doll was quite straightforward to make, and I am quite pleased with the outcome as it definitely resembles the pirate I created earlier in the project.

 

Word count: 214

The Making Of – Character and Bag

I decided to start by making the pirate pack as it was my favourite pack out of all 0f them. For this, I designed a character for my pack by looking at the artist Andrew Bannecker, whose style I found was different and quite soft and colourful. Since I really liked his style, I then created a series of small pirate characters all in his style, I created 9 pirates, all different in the type of clothes that they are wearing and also hair/facial styles.  Out of the 9 pirates I created, I then chose my favourite for the “face” of the pack. I really like the pirate I chose because he looks very happy compared to the other characters I created and also had a sense of adventure which I felt was quite important as it keeps my target audience attracted to the pack.

I also used the 9 pirates and scanned them into Photoshop before adding colour and copying them to make a pattern. I then applied the logo and this pattern is now on the cover of my bag.

 

Word count: 193

REFINING IDEAS

I have decided that there would be 3 different packs for the visitors to choose from, a pirate, mermaid and scuba diving pack. I have decided to do this because I felt that some girls would prefer to have a more feminine pack compared to the pirate pack and that would give the children more choice when they come to the Centre, I also decided to create an alternative theme so that there would be more choice. Inside the packs, there will be a hat, a map of the centre and on the back of it, there would be an answer sheet as when I visited the Sea Life Centre, the children were able to fill in a quiz and they had to find the answers on their way around the Centre. There will also be an eye patch for the pirate theme, and perhaps a form of goggles for the scuba diving pack. For each theme I will create a character which will be the “face” of the pack, so that the children can refer to it and make the experience a bit more personal and memorable for them.  I decided to keep the hat idea as I thought it was quite popular when I visited the Sea Life Centre and it fits quite well with the themes I have chosen for the packs, for the pirate theme I would create a pirate hat, a tiara for the mermaid theme and for the scuba diving theme I would make a mask of the character for the children to wear.

Word count: 259

SEA LIFE CENTRE – DESIGNS

I found that I needed a logo design for the Centre as I found the original logo a bit plain and boring, and since I am appealing to the younger visitors, I felt the need for a new and more exciting logo. I started my research by looking at the current logo and also other logos associated with sea life. I found that the main colours used in the logos were blue, white, yellow and red, so when I started designing my logo, I kept these colours in mind as they work well. I found that the Bubba Gump logo was inspirational for my logo, as I really liked the shape of the logo and also the placement of the shrimp and the text on the logo. I then took this and applied it to my own ideas for my own logo. I kept the circular shape and changed the shrimp to a dolphin and a seahorse. Out of all of the logos I designed,  the seahorse logo came out the strongest. I also found that I should not choose the dolphin logo as there were not any dolphins in the Sea Life Centre when I visited, compared to the seahorse sanctuary there. I then created my logo by first drawing out the separate parts and cutting them out before painting them. I used  layered card instead of creating the logo digitally because I work better practically compared to digital work. I found that the colours I used worked really well as they balance out well, with the seahorse not being too bright and taking too much attention over the rest of the logo. The text is also well placed on the logo and is readable which is key on any logo. I have also found that the combination of colours and sizing of the seahorse on the logo have made my logo quite memorable and it will stand on my welcome pack.

 

Word count: 323

Below the Sea – Ideas

After investigating Rachel Wilson, I found that I really enjoyed producing studies based on sea creatures. After a bit of further development of my own illustrations I came up with the idea of producing graphics for the Sea Life Centre.  I visited the Sea Life Centre in Birmingham and I really enjoyed the day out. Whilst I was at the Centre,  free pirate hats were given out to the children and the children were given a quiz to complete on their way around the Centre, making the day out educational as well as exciting for the children. This has inspired me for my final outcome as I realised that I could make a welcome pack for the younger visitors when they came to the Sea Life Centre.

Word count: 127

Artist Research – Alice Pattullo

This artist took a very different approach to those that I have already looked at as she concentrates more on ships and buildings. Her style is quite similar to Rogers in a way that they both use different thicknesses of lines and different shapes to create detail. This artist is also quite different to the ones I have already looked at as this artist concentrates on boats and the more industrial side to the coast compared to the animals that are found in Wilson’s and Rogers’ works.

http://www.alicepattullo.com/

Word count: 88