Images for the yearbook / Promotional posters

Evaluation of working on the yearbook

When i originally decided to be a part of the yearbook team i had no idea what a mammoth task it would become, i thought that it would simply be a case of deciding on a concept and making sure that concept was evident in the finished book as well as making sure everyone else on the course handed their work in to the set deadline.
There have been numerous hurdles to overcome throughout this experience, working as part of a team , working alongside others that envision things in a completely different way and of course trying to complete each of the tasks i was given before self given deadlines.
Although this task was a laborious one for me and it did take away valuable time that i should have been committing to my own work, overall i did enjoy it. Their have been some high points and some rather frustratingly low ones but i am excited to see the finished product and hopefully everyone will be happy with what has been produced.

The proof we didn't actually get to see

So today i found out that the Graphics boys sent to book to print without showing it to any of the tutors or myself. I really don't know why they have done this as over the past few days i have spent a lot of time in their studio making sure everything was ready and every body was happy with the content so not to show us it before it went to print was unprofessional of them. After i found out i went to speak to them about this as i knew Cheryl wanted to see it and i was under the impression that she had to sign it off before it went to print in the first place. So after taking to them i found out that the reason they hadn't shown us the proof was because they felt that we would only try and make more amendments and they didn't have time for that at this late stage and with deadlines looming. I don't think this is a valid reason i feel that this was their was of making sure that they didn't have to have a meeting with my tutors as for some reason they have taken changes we have made to their original concept personally. Even with all of these setback they are really happy with the book and i have to say from what i have seen so far, so am I.

Here are a few images of the proof i was able to get off the boys,

This week i have mostly.......

The yearbook is in its final stages and now its just the final details that are being somewhat laboriously raked over, i understand that this is an important process and getting the yearbook the perfect is important however i feel a little like a go between- almost stuck between getting the book how the students envisioned it, in a way that makes the tutors happy and keeps the graphics boys from biting my head off.

After getting the final copy mock up from the boys last Friday i proof read it myself and made amendments on spelling, type mistakes (Beverly's page had the first two lines from Laurens page) image problems (when i had supplied amended images from students that hadn't been changed) Profile photographs changes ( when one students image was in place of another's ( Collette on Gina's page) and when the test shots where still in place of the actual profile image ( Collete's page )
After doing this i had a meeting with Cheryl to go over any other changes and amendments to the book - The Graphics boys were also insisting on copy to be written by Cheryl for the 'Work in public page' as an introduction- (and this is where i felt like a go between) The boys felt like they weren't being heard by Cheryl on why this was an integral part of the book and Cheryl's attitude was that the page was self- explanatory - and me? well i understood where they were both coming from,
- the work in public page is self explanatory- it's work in public and has a list of the public events in the right bottom corner
- in order for this page to fit in with the other pages it needed some kind of copy as all of the other pages had it and if this page didn't - it wouldn't flow as well as the rest of the book did.

Quite a small sticking point which i feel got a little out of hand mainly due to the fact that the graphics boys and Cheryl don't seem to be communicating very well, which is odd because i seem to be getting daily emails and messages from them. In the end the problem was resolved by the actual showing of the book to Cheryl - who hadn't seen this final version the boys seem to be getting a little mixed up to as who their client is and need to be showing this stuff to Cheryl as she is ultimately the person who need to sign the book off before it goes to print.

As you can tell from these photographs - quite a lot of minor adjustments were needed, thankfully when i went to the Graphics studios to talk to the boys they weren't too daunted by all of the sticky notes, and i was told that it would all be corrected by tomorrow and that they would send us the amended PDF of the book

The covershot

We have been working towards the cover for a while now, getting the instillation ready has been a big group effort, inparticular Beverly, Amy, Brad and Andrew have worked so hard to get the instillation the way we have originally planned it, So this week is when the hard work pays off. We had always envisioned the instillation being set up in the studio so that the students would feel a sense of owernership over the book - our studio and the instillation everyone had helped to make. The Graphic boys now envision it differently to us, they want to shoot it in the lecture theatre- not only is this not what we had planned but the logistical problems with moving it could possibly ruin the actual piece itself as it is only held together with glue. But as we see this as a collaborative concept we met in the lecture theatre and both argued out the pro's and con's as we see then. After about an hours long disscussion we all agreed that we would go for the studio option and if we couldn't get a shot that everyone was happy with then we would use the lecture theatre which we booked out for friday as our back up plan - so we had four days to get the shot. fist task was clearing space in the studio which we did as a group, second take to get the instillation to actually stand up which only took a surprisingly small amount of fishing wire. so far so good until....
Day one
Brad and Andrew spent an entire day trying to get the shot we had disscussed and they managed to get one we were all very pleased with- i left them to carry on taking extra shots at 7:30   after emailing the graphics boys the shot we liked only to find out that they hadn't been shooting it in raw and the image resolution was not good enough to be enlarged to fit across the two cover pages.
Day Two
After waiting until it was dark outside (because a portion of the studio windows are in shot and we liked the lighting once daylight had faded) a second photoshoot took place we got the shot emailed it to the boys. job done..... or so we thought until i got home and had an email from adam saying ......'Why can't your boys shoot in raw' - erm stomach dropping time - Andrew arrived at my house at 10pm after finding out that the image wasn't usable. After getting the original images from andrew, and finding out they they were infact shot in raw and where entirely usable, we decided to just get on with it ourselves and put the image over the cover layout, send it to Adam telling them this was the one we wanted. Poor Andrew and Brad had spent ages trying to get the perfect shot and i was getting more than a little fed up with the attitude we where getting from Adam.
Day Three
Met in our studio at 10, instillation still set up from previous night, Andy (tutor from photography) Andrew, Brad, Myself, Adam, Luke and Dan- together we made a few tweeks to the set up and finally got the shot we wanted.
here are some of the hundereds of photographs that where taken,

And it was all going so well...

Working on the yearbook has become a bit of a well I'm just going to say it, a pain in the arse - since the boys have decided that they don't want to have any more meetings, i have been constantly bombarded with phone calls text and emails - which has pretty much had me running around like a headless chicken, ensuring that i have all of the copy that they want. The work in public pages have had to be handed to me pretty much last minute as some of the events have only just taken place. With regards to getting peoples images and text for their page this also has been an unnecessarily arduous task - as although i have stated the images size and quality they need to have to be printed people submitted images that just didn't have a high enough resolution, also getting every ones statements has been overly difficult even though we have set aside meetings in the studio for everyone to help each other with statements - sometimes people just don't turn up. Even though we set the original deadline for submissions at the beginning of the month i have yet to still get everything i need to hand over and that isn't through lack of trying - I have even resorted to calling at the house of one student who has yet to give me her statement.
Although it is a little waring at time it has to be done and i do want the year book to be the best that it can be so even though i feel like most people have lost interest in it now i shall have to keep at it, and try my best to keep the graphics boys happy because we really don't have an alternative.

Year Book meeting five

Today's meeting was a bit of a strained one - Our third year tutor Dan joined us, and new ideas were introduced - regarding the quotes pages and the work in public pages- As a whole group ( i.e all 18 of us) we have been talking the year book through regularly and the quotes pages are a bit of a sticking point as no one has introduced any quotes from artists or inspirations that they would like for these pages and i am loath to put forward ideas myself as i feel that other students think i am having too much of a say in what goes in to the book although this isn't true. throughout the process i have been trying really hard to get feedback and put forward any ideas that they have regarding then book.
So in today's meeting Dan brought forward the idea of having alumni pages - past students who are now working within the creative industry and how the course helped them to get their- or just a bit about their work. The Graphics boys were not happy with this whatsoever and where shooting me furious looks throughout the meeting like i have betrayed them. Now whilst i was a bit taken aback upon first hearing the idea, i listened to what Dan was saying and i guess it made sense. We as a group don't have much to fill these pages with regards to quotations so why not have these pages in as they go further to promote the course- and as we only have a small number of students in the year isn't it better to have a book full of lively work rather than have a thinner book that makes less of an impact on the reader?
So i knew the Graphics boys were not happy with this idea and i spoke to them after the meeting as an attempt to calm them down after all i felt a friendly working environment would produce better results however upon returning home that night i received a rather curt email;

We have left the meeting pretty confused about what is happening, due to students and tutors having conflicting ideas. The newly proposed section devoted to ex-students seems unnecessary and confusing for the user. These images would work as a backdrop to quotes pages, but this inclusion should have been mentioned weeks ago. We are trying to deliver the appropriate outcome that we would all be happy with but with such tight deadlines and other factors, we cannot afford to change the structure so significantly that it puts the whole project in jeopardy.

The profile and introductory spreads are now in progress, and will be delivered on time. However, the delays and confusions surrounding sections and structures ultimately means that we will be left without direction, which means these sections would have little or no context. At this point in the project it is imperative we are all on the same page.

Our deadline to have the whole book designed is the 9th May. That means we have potentially two more weeks of development before we hand it over to the printer.

We still need a significant amount of copy and images from you to complete the book.

- Acknowledgement page copy
- Quotes for 5x spreads
- Student images (To be shot on Thursday)
- Cover photography (To be shot next Tuesday)
- Outstanding copy for students profiles
- Events/ Work in public copy/images (we still need clarification on what this is going to be) (we suggest doing some sort of introduction to this section)
- All contact details for students

This is a massive list, and we are certainly worried. We cannot afford to waste any more time discussing options and page layouts this close to final hand ins, not just for this brief but for our personal work.

We will put together the final spreads for the introduction, contents and profile pages ready next week and we will send Jaclyne a PDF of what we have next Tuesday. We will continue to liaise with Jaclyne on behalf of the students to rectify the issues raised today. 

I don't really know what the best way to respond to this, however i have a few concerns of my own

- the graphics lot seem to be of the understanding that this is their book which it isn't its our book as a course, the course are the clients so ultimately they should be doing what we ask them to do. The part about liaising with me on behalf of the students? what is all that about does this mean that meetings will discontinue? I have spoken to Adam since the meeting and he feels that he is being messed around and the whole context of the book is in jeopardy - and i thought girls where the dramatic ones!

Choosing the yearbook layouts

Because we chose to have an unfixed layout for the catalouge, Their was a lot of decision making when it came to choosing who got what and where, how each page looked in it's own right and how it flowed with the rest of the book. This really was a matter of pinning it all up in the graphics studio one sunny saturday morning and picking and matching them and then changing our minds quite a lot. Although it took all morning i feel it was time well spent as the book as a whole is not static the page layouts aren't fixed so i feel that its a much more interesting book than if we had chosen the same layout for each page. At this point i feel that the process is going quite well, it is much more time consuming than i had originally expected but that is mainly due to the fact that their are three graphics boys working on the book and only one of me

Year Book Meeting three- we have ourselves a title'

Today's meeting was just a clarification on things we had already discussed we showed the progress we had made on the instillation ideas and gave them the images we had from students work as well as the test shots from Dan Ross. We discussed possible colour's that we wanted to use and showed them a colour chart that Ellie had produced, we made a decision to use green's and greys as well as the blue from the background of Dan Ross's images.

We also agreed on a paper stock for the book Regency Satin - which in layman's terms means its a bit glossy but not too glossy. We also made the decision to make the title out of laser cut cardboard glued together in layers as not only would it be the least time consuming option but we felt that it would give a greater impact to the space- we will start this process over the Easter break so as to allow enough time on the laser cutter. my main task for this week is getting people inductions on the laser cutter who haven't had them including myself, booking out as much time on the laser cutter as possible and to continue getting images and copy from everyone as well as booking photography studio and making sure everyone including Dan is available at that time .

Year Book Meeting two

In today's meeting we discussed the layout of the book and made some decisions,

-There will be 64 pages in the book 

- spare pages will be for quotes pages (not sure about having so many pages for quotes)

- centre spread

- the possibility of having a gate fold for the cover image ( the front cover will fold out on both sides so their could be a 4 page shot of the instillation.)

After getting the thumbs up for the typography instillation from the rest of the group we again discussed it with the graphics boys who had already gotten a quote from wood work about the costings, however they had got the price of making the word interdisciplinary out of wood which in the size we were talking about would cost around £160 - given the fact that we don't even know how many letters will be in the title of the show as this stage, this price did put us off somewhat as we will have to fund raise for the wood and as of yet the fundraising team haven't come up with any solid ideas. We talked about the possibility of making it out of cardboard in order to save money - i think that using cardboard could be the better option if we want the making of it to be a group effort - it will be easier to get everyone involved.- anyway we decided to re-visit this idea at a later date when we have actually decided on a name for the show, which we have a meeting about early next week so once we have decided on an name for the show, we will do a mock up of it as an instillation to show at the next meeting. 

Dan and Adam brought mock up layouts for the book using the imagery from last years book, their was quite a selection - and we picked out the ones that we liked the most. 

There where two very different styles, one was very structured and i thought very samey, whilst the other's layout changed from page to page - we all opted for the less structured one and they agreed to bring us more development on these layouts for the next meeting.

I have also arranged to have a test shot photo shoot with Dan Ross so we could try out possible ideas for the profile pages- after seeing the layouts of the pages and realising how small they actually are - we may have to change our initial idea as they are too small for us to covey our practices within. 

My to do list for the next meeting- Get a sample of images from three students, get their profile shot taken, get them to write some copy to go onto their test page, get everyone to decide on a title for the show, mock up that title to covey our own ideas of how it should look.