Creative Statement for Component 1

Task:
You are to begin to write your Creative Statement for Component 1. 
This is what the moderator requires to help them understand your project.

Open the Creative Statement Template on Google Drive HERE. 

Remember to look at an example HERE

Presentation of Final Piece

Once you have completed your work, it is time for the presentation of your Final Piece. 
Consider places where you might see your artefact in the real world.

Screenshot from the web or use your own photos. Photoshop your work onto the screenshots.

Children's Picturebooks = ReadBrightly    Waterstones   TheGuardian   
Music = Spotify    Apple Music     Amazon
Magazines = Newsstand

Investigating Colour.

Objective

In order for you to fully explore the combinations of colours that you could potentially use in your design, you must try your latest idea in various colour schemes.

Task

Take your latest ideas and colour it using colour scheme ideas. This could include:

Monochromatic, complementary, analogous and triadic. There are many more examples - high saturation, low saturation with spot colour. It's up to you.
If you want to attempt your own schemes, you are welcome.

*Please ensure that the colour choice you make for your final pieces is included in the examples that you create.

Presentation

Post to your presentation with an explanation of what and why you have done this. You should also point out the most successful version and explain why.

Checklist for assessment

Can we tell straight away that you have consciously used colour?

Below is Michael's A* example.

Exploring media

Exploring media

In a nutshell, make your design. Just see how it goes.

It is very important that you are influenced by the artist you have just studied in SOME way. You may wish to incorporate another - linked! - artist / designer / photographer and do another small investigation.

For this task, you will have time to develop your ideas by exploring different media. You should attempt to choose a technique or medium that is similar to one that you have mainly been using. For example, if you have begun to create a photography-based artefact, choose more photography developments that show that you can move an idea along, that you are playful and creative.

Look in my books and on Pinterest for ideas.

By the end of this section, your idea should have moved along considerably and you should be breaking new ground.

Please have fun, work hard, and be playful. Honestly, you will get marks for being courageous as well as skilful.

Explain your personal response and criticise and analyse their work. Use the relevant questions on the LOOKING AT ARTEFACTS sentence starters sheet to help your questioning and responses. 


The full 'Looking At Artefacts' sheet is HERE

Refined Drafts

Objective
To further develop your layout ideas

Task
Take one of your favourite scamps and draw it neater at an A5-ish size.

Do this 3 times with the same design, refining each time as you go. After each drawing, annotate to describe what elements you can change and refine. This could be type size/placement, character size/placement,
You don't have to include colour at this stage.

AO2 Refine their
ideas through experimenting and selecting appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes

Presentation
Photograph and post to presentation.

Checklist for assessment
3 refined drafts with annotations.

Deadline
First day back after Summer hols

Similar Artefact Typography - Homework

Objective
To research the variety of typography used on your chosen artefact.
To select a possible typeface for your product.

Task 1:

Gather together 10 or more examples of similar artefacts. (If you are making a console game cover, then you will collect lots of game covers.)

Crop them so that it only shows the type of the title.

Print them off and stick them in your sketchbook

• Describe the fonts used.
• Are there any similarities that appear in many examples?
• Why do you think they are suitable for the artefacts?
• Analyse using the Style & Personality section of these type terms

Task 2:

Look on Dafont to select a typeface that could be used on your own artefact.

• Try a few
• Present them using the name of your artefact
• Describe why the examples you have chosen is good for your design.

Task 3:
Choose ypur favourite example.
How has the designer arrived at the type design? What is it made of or look like? (scuffed metal, swords, wooden branches, cloud etc)
Use images and swatches to explain. 

Expected time

2 hr +

Deadline

Start of the lesson - Wed 19 June

Emulating and Artist

Respond to your chosen artists' work

Respond to your chosen artists' work 

It is now time to emulate or translate their style or process. As a starting point, you are to use a thumbnail idea from earlier in your book and attempt to create it fully using your chosen artist or style as a guide.

Take characteristics of their work and merge them with your own work. Translate the work into your own ideas. Don’t spend hours copying whole images. Copies don’t earn many marks - your personal response does.

Feel free to be as creative and playful as you wish. Ideas that are out of this world get better results and are much more fun!

5 Lessons. 2 this week and 3 after half term.

Deadline: Wed 5th June.

Artist Investigation

Cover lesson work.

Objectives
To further your understanding of graphic communication practitioners

Task
Using the web, the list below and my books, research and present a contextual investigation of a relevant artist, illustrator, photographer or designer. 

REMEMBER - You will be working in a similar style, so pick something that suits your project and that you are going to enjoy investigating and making.

Feel free to ask me for suggestions. The list below is just some interesting suggestions. Remember that you are looking for a designer or artists that could influence your work and that you will be working in the style of. 

Feel free to look through my Pinterest boards HERE

Some are linked, some you have to copy and paste into Pinterest

Craig Thompson	Felicita Sala	Depero Futurista	Daniel Danger
Beatrice Alemagna	David Carson	Petra Eriksson	Digital Paint / Photo
Marcus Walters	Jamie Reid	J Grant Brittain	Barney Bubbles
Paula Bulling	Laura Carlin	Joohee Yoon	John Dilnot
Martin Parr	David Hockney	Francesca Woodman	Double Exposure
Oliver Jeffers	Busy Collage	David Downton	Robert Rauschenberg
Jonny Hannah	Andrea D’Aquino	Isabelle Vandenabeele	Carson Ellis
Privat Livemont	Art Chantry	Victor Moscoso	David Carson
Killer Acid	Dave McKean	Jamie Hewlett	Tom J Newell
Peter Saville	Rick Griffin	Martin Sharp	Kate Moross
Clare Caulfield.	Jon McNaught	Gipi	Mark Hearld

The contents of the investigation should include the following:

1 Gather 4+ pieces of their work - bullet point why these pieces are characteristic of the artist’s work. Don’t describe them separately, look for similar traits. 

2 Explain your personal response and criticise and analyse their work. Use the relevant questions on the LOOKING AT ARTEFACTS sentence starters sheet to help your questioning and responses. 

The full 'Looking At Artefacts' sheet is HERE

3 Respond to their work by emulating their style or process. Take characteristics of their work and merge them with your own work. Translate the work into your own ideas. Don’t spend hours copying whole images. Copies don’t earn many marks - your personal response does.

For those students wishing to achieve the top grades:
Context GCSE Stretch and Challenge 1 Write about the context. What other designers are working at the same time? Include a range of illustrator's work

Influences GCSE Stretch and Challenge 2 Research to find out who the designer has been influenced by. To do this you may need to read an interview with the illustrator. 

Just Google "Interview with [illustrator's name]" and read a few passages

Thumbnail your initial designs

Objective
To work through your initial ideas in an uninhibited fashion. Working in pen means that you can work quickly and not worry about making mistakes. Consider the fact that one of the ideas that you make will eventually make it through to be a final design. Get all of your ideas no paper now, however strange.
For those who consider themselves not able to draw... think of these as diagrams rather than drawings.
The work at the bottom of the post is not A grade standard, but they have a lovely looseness to the drawing.

Task
Using a pen, draw out your ideas over a couple of sketchbook spreads or more.
Firstly, pour all of your ideas out. 

Then, if you like one, in particular, develop that one for a few scamps until you have a better, more refined version.

By refining, you are looking at improving the placement of the title, or the direction of an image. 

Presentation
Sketchbook.
You may colour them if you wish, but do it loosely and don't spend too much time on it.

Checklist for assessment
Loads and loads of different ideas being explored and refined.

Time needed
3 hrs

Deadline
First lesson back after Easter

Investigate using photography

Objective
To gather further primary research for your Component 1 project. 
To enable those who feel drawing is weak to collect useful primary research.   
Within the mark scheme, AO3 states: 'Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to their intentions in visual and/or other forms.'

Task 1
1. Consider the subject matter for your project. Take a collection of 30+ photos that you could either edit and use in the final artefact or just use as drawing/illustration reference.
To get the best results from this task, be as creative as you can with your subject and composition. 
As an example, if you have a wise old wizard in your book—and don't have a wise old wizard to hand—dress up your friend/dad/self in a bed sheet, cardboard hat and long stick. Pose them in different, relevant positions. 
Or, look on YouTube for tutorials about how to create wise old wizard make-up. There are loads of tutorials (plenty of zombies) on make-up. Make sure you then photograph the 'making of' period.
You will get plenty of good results from using your initiative. 
Do not make excuses as to why you couldn't get interesting images, there is no excuse.

Task 2 2. Print off and annotate -

• Note images that are good. This might be due to them being in focus, correct composition etc. 
• Cross out images that are not to be used. Out of focus, badly cropped, wrong position etc. 
• Write simple notes against the photos, 'out of focus', 'too far away' or 'too dark', 
• Make your annotations obvious - write in pink? 

Within the contact sheet presentation, comment on the following:

• What were your intentions for the shoot? Why take these images? 
• What are the successful elements, What worked well? 
• What were the unsuccessful elements? What didn't work well? 
• If you were to take these images again, what would you do to make them more suitable? 
• Do you believe that you have all the shots you need for the project? If not, what others do you need to take? 

Checklist for assessment
Lots of interesting photographs with concise and insightful evaluative annotations. 

Deadline
Start of the lesson, April 29th.

Conventions of the form

Objective 
To increase your understanding of the elements needed to create a successful artefact. The 'form' relates to the artefact that you are making for component 1. Graphics products come in various 'forms': game covers, packaging, magazines boo covers etc.

Task 
Annotate a few examples of artefacts to indicate the elements that are typically included.
If you find that there is not much on a single digipak or book cover, use a few different examples - especially if you are aiming for a 7 or 8.

Tip
Those looking at children's' picture books, you will find that once you have noted down things such as title, author, image etc, you will wish to examine some in a little more detail. Notice general things about the use of type, is it straight? what sort of typefaces? Maybe look at the size and shape of characters, how big are their heads? what expression do they have? You are after generalisations, not specifics fo these tasks.

Those looking at album cover design, once you have completed stating that most albums have a title, image and barcode, you will want to look a little deeper. Try gathering some example from different genres (metal, country, indie, Blues, EDM etc) and noting the similarities or differences that they have. As an example, you may wish to spot at how Blues albums mainly feature musicians holding or playing their main instrument - probably guitar. This is due to the audience's fondness for seeing blues artists and being able to actually play rather than mime. There is authenticity.

Time needed 
2 hrs over at least a double page spread. 

Deadline 
April 1st

Writing and presenting your brief - Homework

Task 
Use the presentation to properly compose and structure your brief for component 1.
Then present it beautifully in your sketchbook.
Simple.

Deadline 19 March

Thumbnails of other designs - Classwork

Objective

To further understand the part white space and layout plays in a graphic artefact.

To become aware of how designers balance elements on a page.

Task
Gather a range of similar artefacts. This can be via Pinterest or your own examples.

Draw them in your sketchbook.

Pay close attention to the light and dark tones—allow your brain to 'threshold' the greys into either light or dark tones. See my measly example above.
The images above are of magazines - not book covers, or CD Digipaks or Children's book covers but you get the gist.

Remember, you can to look at my PINBOARDS if you are struggling for examples...

Checklist for assessment
18 examples or two pages.

Deadline
March 19th

Create a moodboard - Homework

Task
Your homework task is to assemble and present a mood board related to your brainstorm or content research (band lyrics, story, etc).
Look at your brainstorm and collect related imagery 
The mood board should be presented on a double page spread of your sketchbook... or more!
Don't be too strict on yourself - at this stage in the project, you can let your imagination run wild... pretty much anything goes.
The end result should completely cover your pages and be a carnival of ideas.
Use the Critical Reflection helpsheet when annotating.

What to include?
Imagery from your brainstorm 
    (photographs, drawings, illustration, your own and found)
Words and phrases, lyrics - printed and handwritten
Potential colour schemes
Textures and associated ephemera

Deadline - Tuesday, March  12th

Brainstorming

Objective

To allow you to retrieve and create a wealth of ideas for your unit 1 project.

Tasks

1. In your sketchbook, brainstorm all of the possible ideas / associations that you associate with your story / lyrics / title / synopsis / brand.

2. Attempt to ‘free-associate’ - allowing your brain to come up with ideas - with many of the words. Don’t judge yourself at this point, just let the ideas flow.

3. Feel free to draw and doodle and stick photos in and around your brainstorm. Your book should start off with a bang.

This could be attempted in many forms the following ways:
Children's book cover  
Print the story out, (double line spaced is helpful) and annotate in the margins. Highlight key scenes and subject matter that could be used on the cover. 
Game cover 
Start with a few words in the middle of a page. The words should be linked to the game. For Epic City Limits you would write the 'name' of the game, 'city', 'jobs', 'youths' etc. Then, using a thesaurus, branch out with connections.
Design for music 
Come up with a name for the album. THIS LIST of THEMES should help you.
Then brainstorm the name/theme to arrive at a concept.
For existing bands/singers - print off lyrics by and annotate them in the margins. Maybe you can arrive at a theme through the lyrics.
If you have a rough design idea already (e.g. the 1980s) then feel free to use this as the basis of your brainstorm.
Packaging design 
Brainstorm the name of the product... and the overall 'feel' or 'message' of the product.
Magazine design 
Brainstorm the name of the mag... and the overall 'feel' or 'message'. List features that could be included as these might be referenced on the cover.

Example
http://hollypearsonunit1gcsegraphics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/brainstorm-research.html

Checklist for assessment

Loads of interesting ideas.

Time needed

1 hr

Deadline  11 March.

Comp 1 Briefs