Collection 100: Dinosaurs

Five ways to organise your collection
1. Alphabetical - In order of name, from: Abrictosaurus - Zalmoxes
2. Location - The location of where the dinosaurs lived
3. Time - Timescale of dinosaur discoveries
4. Category - By diet - herbivore, carnivore, omnivore
5. Continuum - Smallest to largest - dinosaur size - Based on my primary research - little to expert - dinosaur knowledge & hate to love - opinions

Brief:  Through a process of collection and categorisation of content specific to your own interests and recent research explore one focus point to create the 100 "product", either: product and promotion, product and packaging or product and distribution. You should consider the relationship between content, categories, organisation, media and form.

Ideas:

• Information cards for teenagers, as most dinosaur books are aimed at children
• Children's story book with 100 dinosaurs
• Wrapping paper, greeting cards, tags and packaging with 100 dinosaurs
• Wallpaper - dinosaurs in order from smallest to biggest
• Children's information book, with the dinosaurs in alphabetical order with information about each dinosaur
• Book of 100 fictional dinosaurs
• Collect 100 drawings of dinosaurs by other people
• Packaging for 100 different dinosaur toys
• Dinosaur information cards which can be categorised in different ways by the colour and shape of the card
• A timescale with 100 important dinosaur dates
• Dinosaur playing cards
• Map of the world with 100 locations of where dinosaur fossils have been discovered

Initially I wasn't sure which idea to go with. After my workshops,  (Book workshop &

Moving image workshop), more possibilities for what I could do with my collection 100 came to mind.

• Video featuring 100 dinosaur toys
• 100 frame dinosaur facts video
• 100 frame hand drawn dinosaur animation

Design Ideas

I have decided I will create 100 dinosaur information cards. I have chosen 100 dinosaurs from my research based on the names of the dinosaurs, as well as shape and size, so that the dinosaurs can be categorised in different ways.

I had the idea that instead of these cards just being bought all at once, they could be bought in small packs, so you had to collect them all, like football stickers. This relates to both product and packaging and product and distribution.

Ways I will be categorising: alphabetical, length, height, weight, by diet, danger rating, armour rating, habitat, period. I have made a table, gathering information from many different books and across the internet, to help me understand this data that I will be using on my dinosaur cards. This is also an easy way for me to see which is the biggest dinosaur, etc. 

Design Drawings

I have hand drawn 100 dinosaurs, allowing me to edit these digitally or hand colour them later. This image shows 100 layers of dinosaurs. This image was not supposed to be anything, but I quite like the pattern created by all the different layers and think that I will continue to experiment with this later. I could use a design like this for the front cover or packaging.

Realistically, I realised that I didn't have time to colour in all 100 dinosaurs, so this made me unsure whether to use colour or not on the cards at all. I decided to experiment but concluded that if the whole book was printed in black and white it would look better as everything would be visually consistent.

Colour added on photo shop using a graphics tablet

Colour added by hand with pencils

I think the dinosaur where the colour has been added on the computer looks far better, but this also took quite a long time.

Font Choice

I was also unsure what font to use, so that the book would appeal to both younger boys and girls, and be easy to read. I thought that the dinosaur books I looked at for my research were all for a male audience. I have experimented with fonts that I thought were relevant to my project that already exist on the computer, as well as downloading fonts from dafont.com. 

Card Design

I then started to make the cards, based on my initial design ideas, on photo shop, entering all the information from my spreadsheet.

After my week four crit, the direction of my brief changed slightly. I decided that instead of 100 cards, it would be better for me to create a book. One factor is that with cards, I would need to design a back for the cards. I would want this to be visually consistent and attractive, but have yet to think about design ideas for the back of the cards, so I don't think I would reasonably have time to do this. Also, they would all need to be printed onto card, increasing the cost and doubling the size they would take up, making the product unnecessarily large. I will still focus on categorising by containing the dinosaur facts, and arranging the pages in a particular order, this probably being alphabetical. 

I have made some more changes to the pages, checking the consistency of the grid throughout, as well as altering the line spacing between the dinosaur facts to make the cards easier to read. I have chosen a different font, which is bold and easy to read, as well as working well as a title and for the information. However, I am not completely sure this font is the right font for the cards, so will continue to experiment with the fonts I looked at previously.

Introduction Design

Front Cover Design

For my front cover, I decided I would use the image I had previously accidentally created by layering my drawings. I chose one simple dinosaur to be the very top layer, and so to stand out from the rest, I enlarged it. The original layered image was vertical, but as my dinosaur cards are horizontal, the front cover also needs to be horizontal, so I edited this image. I knew I wanted to keep the front cover simple, apart from the image, as the dinosaur pages in the book are quite simple, so the focus can be on the illustration. I experimented with different layouts, book names, placement of text etc. 

 

Book Anatomy

After deciding that instead of creating 100 cards, I would actually be putting the pages together into a book, I had to decide which way to bind the book. I decided to create mini versions of the book to help me decide, based on what I learnt at the book binding workshop.

I like the concertina fold, as I like the idea that the book could be used as a wall decoration for a child's bedroom after it is coloured in. This mock-up I have created actually contains all 100 dinosaurs, and I think it is a good size. I think the pages need to be A5 to make it easier for children to colour in.

The sewn book looks good, but this example doesn't have all 100 images in. With all 100 pages, It would be very difficult to close or stand up. This example I have made is A6, but realistically the pages need to be A5.

The Japanese stitch book isn't suitable for a children's book; I think it would be too difficult to colour in as you can't open it flat. Again, this mock-up is A6.

I will use the concertina fold for my book, but when creating my final book, I need to re-arrange the layout so that the dinosaurs will be in alphabetical order. The mock-up book was a good size, so I will print the dinosaurs on to paper. I will do this by printing 25 A3 sheets, which I will then cut in half, and glue together the pages. With the paper sheets being placed over each other to create this fold, there is a double thickness, that means when a child is colouring in, the colours won't go through to the back of the page. The front cover and back cover need to be sturdy, so I will print these onto card. There will also be   a title page and an introduction page, which I will also be printing onto paper.

Corrections

By making the mock-up, it helped me to notice some mistakes I had made. For example, I realised that the rulers didn't really make sense the way I had laid them out and placed the numbers. I moved the rules, and tried to add in the arrows which show the actual height and length of the dinosaur, yet could not decide on a way to place these without these arrows being too bold and taking over the attention from the drawing. For now, I will remove the arrows and just keep the rulers. 

Also, the mock-up helped me to realise that I need to organise the order of the pages before I print them out, so that they can be arranged alphabetically.

Human Card

This is the initial plan for the human card, where the reader gets the opportunity to draw their-self and fill in their own information. I thought this would add some humour to the book and make it more exciting.

Blank Cards

I will also be including a few blank cards so that the reader can draw their own dinosaurs, inspired by the illustrations they have seen. This is the initial plan for the card.

[screenshot]

Introduction Pages

Design experiments without use of a structured grid

I learnt about grid in a visual language session and so have applied it to each page, so there is a visual consistency throughout, making the book easier to read as well as looking more professional. As the dinosaur cards had a relatively small amount of information on them, that was placed at the same point on each page, I used a very simple grid, marked out by rules and lines on photoshop. However, after moving the rulers I created to show the show the size of the dinosaurs after realising they did not work, this caused the bottom part of the cards to look too busy, so I made slight alterations to each page to neaten up the design.

For the introductory pages which are filled with information, I tried displaying the information using the simple lines of the dinosaur cards. However, this just made it look like there was a lot of text, which a child would probably not want to read. I added illustrations to make the page more interesting, by even still, the text took over too much. The ideal amount of words in a line in a column for easy reading is in between 7 and 9, so I developed my simple grid into a more structured grid that is still consistent with the rulers for the rest of the book.

Possible grids

 

I think dividing this grid so that there are three columns would be the best option, but I will only know after experimenting with changing the layout.

Design experiments with structured grid

Although the first two layouts follow the structured grid, I think they look too busy. I like the third layout the best, although this would mean the introductory page layout would be smaller than the layout of the dinosaur cards. I'm not sure whether or not I would include the image in the background. Before I make my mind up, I think I need to continue experimenting with the different pages I have completed.

Quiz Page

Key pages

These two pages are supposed to sit side by side, therefore the designs must work with each other. I don't think the layout of the first left key page works, but I like the layout of the second page. I re-arranged the first page so that it is as busy and the layout is similar to the second page.

Back Cover Design

Up until now I haven't really thought too much about what the back cover could be. I want to make the book look realistic, so I researched existing children's books to make sure I included all the relevant components on the back. I decided to continue with the simple black and white illustrations and text in the same style I have used through out. The back covers needs to sell the book quickly, as it is a children's book it shouldn't contain much text.

I think these plans for the back cover look too plain compared to all the other pages in the book. Even when I experimented with more images the back cover still looked boring, so I included a screenshot of an example page from the book.

Packaging

As this brief is product and packaging, I have created packaging to go with the colouring pencils that come with the book. The most important part of this brief is the book, so I want the focus to be on the product rather than the packaging, so have kept this simple.

Originally, as I was creating cards, the information that I have included on the front cover and back cover of the book would have been the information used for the packaging. Therefore, it is as if the packaging for the colouring pages is the book that the pages are placed in.

I had ideas for the packaging for the book, such as the book and pencils being contained in a cellophane case, but I didn't think this would work as most of the information is on the back of the book and this needs to be seen. I also tried to make a bellyband to hold the book together, but I decided there was already quite a lot going on on the covers of the book that this wasn't adding anything to the design.

View Final Product