Evaluation

In the beginning the whole concept of this project struck me with a great sense of challenge and enjoyment. Enjoyment from the idea of knowing that the subject for this assignment was fully under my own decision and the feeling of challenge as to what my choice will be for this project.

At first bringing together an idea for this book project wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. Thanks to previous years of photographic education and the assignments that came with it, I was able to put together what was in the end (in my opinion) a fairly respectable book. Also with the help of my lecturers and my classmates I then was able to make the whole concept of my book even stronger than before.

The two photoshoots that I brought together (with the much appreciated help of my dad) I feel were pretty successful. Even with the strongest images I chose for my work I still came away with some strong pictures that can be added to my current portfolios.

If I could go back and change anything about the outcome of my project it would be that I wished I had the final ideas about making my project into a visual metephor at the beginning of this assignment. I could of planned my photoshoots with a bit more care and with possibly more appropaite subject matters. With the editing of my book on the website blurb.com, it was alot easier than my classmates made it out to be. There seemed to be alot of negetive and some what disgrutaled comments about the website's program that allows you to put together the layout of your book design. In all honesty though I was able to put together my book design layout in a few hours, I feel though that it may of been easier for me because the whole layout for my book was much simpler than other's.

When my book arrived in the post I was a little surprised with the look and feel of the book as a whole. I orded the book with only 20 pages and a soft cover, I didn't realise that it would look as thinnly as it does. Although the more you pick the book up and observe the pages you start to notice that it doesn't need masses of pages with sentence after sentence of text, it works alot better the simplier it is.

Overall though I feel that this project has been a good success, my book has been produced in a satisfactory manner, I do wish though that it could of been made with a more....ligitimate feel to it, but alas it hasn't. I'm pleased with the research that I gathered together and put up on my blog and I hope it is enough to explain the concept of my book to people who at first glance maybe quite bewildered by it.

BookSmart Layout

These are the printscreens of the book layout i made on the software BookSmart on the website Blurb.com. It wasen't as hard as i first thought it would be, alot of my classmates told me about how difficult they found it to be, but altogether it was a rather easy task. Im pleased with the outlook of this book and its just how i wanted it to be, a simple layout and design with the images standing out and create the visual metephor i am trying to achieve.

Introduction Ideas

Origionally when thinking of ideas for my introduction to this book, i thought about possibly giving the directions to the walking route or a perhaps a description of the town itself but only in a couple of sentences. But then I thought about how I wanted to keep this book visual not literal, so i started to think about soming up Chenies Bottom in a few short and sweet words to make a bigger impact.

Being that I want this book to be a visual metephor i want to leave as little literiture as possible out of this book. But how could I do this without giving away too much detail of the concept of this book? I struggled to think of the correct words that i could use to do this job, so seeing as my Dad came with me on this walk I asked for his opinions. We began to brainstorm ideas for words that could describe this walk and with a stroke of genius from my Dad he came out with one word....Checkmate.

The whole concept of this book is about the idea of a trapped or enclosed envionment and seeing as the river we walked along is called The River Chess, the use of the word checkmate played on the idea of metephorical enclosement of a game of chess which I think works brilliantly. So for my introduction page it will consist of a map of the walking route myself and my dad took with a title and subtitle;

The River Chess
Checkmate

I feel this is a clever way to tell the viewer of my book the secret meaning behind my concept but not in such a way that they will understand it striaght away.

Title Ideas

Altogether the main idea for this book project is to be a visual meterphor, I don't want to be over literal with the concept, so coming up with an idea for a title was harder than i first thought.

This were the title ideas I came up with ;

• Opposed To Freedom
• Chaney On Chenies
• ...As Opposed To Freedom
• Trapped (but translated in a different language)
• Encontra Ut Licentia (Latin translation for opposed to freedom)

I really liked this idea of Chaney On Chenies, because the irony seemed to work well together, and also having a sub title in a latin translation gave it a nice twist that made the viewer think about the title itself. So I feel that my strongest title for my book will look like this on the page;

Chaney On Chenies
(Econta Ut Licentia)

I hope that this title will make a powerful impression for my book.

InDesign Book Layout

This is the basic book layout that I designed on InDesign, it was rather tricky to work out how to put it together so I asked for help from a graphic designer friend of mine. There are a couple of pages missing from this layout, however i know excatly how I want the missing pages to look in my final outcome.