Self-directed: "Out Of Control - Evaluation

Evaluation

Looking back over my self-directed project, even though I am very pleased with the out come of my flip books, there are few things I would do differently after what I have learnt from it. 

The first thing that I would change would be the weight of the paper, from 170 gsm to 150 gsm, because I found that the flick to the books were a little bit stiffer than I would have wanted. It was also quite expensive to use this paper, so it wasn't a very good choice if I was trying to make a profit from the books.

The next thing I would have changed, now I have a better knowledge of InDesign, would be use the space on the sheets I printed, because there was a lot of empty space on the pages that didn't have a lot of flip book pages on. I think I could have condensed my work from 8 pages of A1 to 7 pages by planning my space better. This would have saved me some money and been more eco friendly.

Another thing that I would have liked to change would be my method of binding. I had planned on stapling the pages of the flip book together in one go with a heavy duty stapler, or in two goes if the books were just a little bit too thick for one go. I went to Staples and they told me that this was achievable, but when I came back after my pages were ready they said that they couldn't do this, in the way I had originally planned. So I made do because of the now limited time I had left and stapled as many as I could together, and glued each section together to make the book. This was difficult to do and to make sure all the pages were aligned. Next time I would just get my prepared pages, drill a hole through them and put a post through it.

One thing I would have done differently when recording the subject would be to make sure that they didn't have the item, that was making them pull that face, in the frame because I feel the reactions were easier to interpret when there wasn't something covering part of their face. Though this would be really difficult to do to the lemon due the sour taste hitting the senses very quickly, unlike the chilli or the onion.

There are some processes I would have to change if I were to make this into a mass produced product. For example, the printing process and the cutting process. I would have to change the layout of the print completely, making sure every inch of paper was used wisely and the cutting process would most definitely have a die cutter set up to cut the images out in its thousands.

Other than the time I spent on the actual conversion from film into pages, I don't think I would change much more of my project. The only reason it took so long was the amount of learning curve that came with using programs and methods that I was almost completely unfamiliar with. But now I know them a bit better they would be quicker to use. 

One thing that I am particularly pleased about is outcome of the covers, I think that choice of navy blue over black or white, gives it a less harsh look but still looks neat and sophisticated. I also think that the use of the silver ink works really well against the navy blue paper, and again isn't as harsh on the eyes as white would be. I really love how the printing process gave an indentation of the lettering into the paper, giving it a tactile dimension to it.