Digital Graphic Narrative Planning

Use this booklet to help structure your planning and collate your planning documents.

Considerations:

There are lots of things to consider in this project. Fill out each section in detail to show you have thought about each one. You should imagine that this is a live project, so considerations like cost, quantity and codes of practice must be thought about in that context rather than just as a college project.

Costs:In the production of my book there shouldn’t be any costs as I am doing it all on Photoshop and using what is already available and not having to purchase any other equipment. But if I was to think of this in a wider context such as industry I may have to think about the cost of production and what it may cost to employ an illustrator for my book an in some cases may have to pay royalties for the story.

Available resources:Resources that are available to me for this project is the computer and all the software that is on that computer such as Photoshop, and PowerPoint and Word to help me to spell check and plan. Other things that I have available to me is the internet where I can access pictures for inspiration and sites like DaFont. Other things that are available to me to use is hardware such as a camera and a scanner.

Quantity:I think that my product is the sort of book that would get reproduced in the 1000’s rather than being a limited edition sort of book. The reason I think this is because I would a lot of children to be able to enjoy it rather than a select few. I think doing it this way would make more money also which means I would be able to funnel this profit into my other books or products that I might produce.

Audience and Target Market:The audience and target market for my children’s book is children in the age range of 3-5. I want my book to be gender neutral because I want to keep the audience as wide as possible. The social group that I want to aim my book at is people and families in the ABC1 category and these are the people that can afford luxuries for their children such as books. The geodemographic of my book would be aimed at people in English speaking countries as this is what the language of my book is going to be, such as the UK, America, Canada, Australia etc, aimed mainly at the UK with the English spelling of words.

Quality Factors:Something that I would need to think about regarding the quality of my book is using the production method that I am best at and avoiding at all costs the ones that I cannot do, for instance I am not good at illustration. Another factor effecting quality is the amount of effort and time that I am willing to put in as the more effort and time would mean the better my product. Another thing relating to time is turning up to all my lessons punctually as I need as much time as possible on it.

Codes of Practice:According to the Publishers code of practice, a publisher cannot cancel a contract without good reason. Good reason for cancelling a contract is if the writer is not working to the agreed time constraints so this means I would have to work promptly and to the agreed time. They can also cancel a contract if the level of production is not as expected so my work would have to be of a high quality. And the publisher will not publish work if he believes it is illegal. The publisher should also sometimes offer financial help in order to ensure that the work is of a high quality, this would be good if I was a real author that didn’t have a lot of money for production but had good ideas.

Regulation:Books such as pop up books could be classed as a toy and I would have to comply to the Toy Safety Directive 2009/48/EC if sold on the European market. For this reason I will not be creating a pop up book as there is a lot of health and safety regulations to comply to. Something else to think about is if my book would contain content which would fall under the obscene publications act 1959, but this will not apply in my book as I will not contain any material in my book which would be deemed obscene I do not believe.

Copyright:This is something that I may have to think about as I am using inspiration from already existing work on the internet, I would have to make sure that I make the characters very different from what I get my inspiration from as to avoid copyright infringement. If I was to take anything right from the internet and put it in my work I would have to find out if there was copyright on it and if there was I would have to ask for permission to use it and possibly pay royalties on the image for every book it was used in.

Ethical Issues:There are not really any ethical issues that I should have to deal with in my book, as I do not represent any religion or race really in my book. I do not believe that children would find my book scary. One thing I might have to consider is when on the last page of the book where you see two slices of toast as some children may work out that this could have been the slice of bread. But I still do not think that this should fall under any ethical issues.

Resources:A successful project relies on good planning. Considering all the resources you will need for a project and then assessing which you already have and which you need will help ensure you are ready to start your project.

If there is a resource you don’t currently have, then consider how you are going to get it before you go in to production.

Resource:Do you have it? What do you need to do to get it?

 The Internet  Yes  

 A computer and the needed software  Yes  

 A scanner  No  Ask Dave if we can use it

 Fonts  No  Go on DaFont and find the fonts that I would require

 Character inspiration and backgrounds  No  Look on the internet for some inspiration

 A camera  No  Go and ask Garry if I can book one out

     

Production Schedule:Delivering your project on time is vital. In order to do this, you need a solid plan of action. This will help you divide up your work in to manageable chunks to be tackled one at a time. It will also allow you to plan which tasks need to be done in which order. It will also allow you to track your progress each day. If you are falling behind, you will need to modify the way you work. If you work faster than expected, you can clearly see what the next steps you need to take are.

Each session is a half day of college.

Session 1:

 Try to get my loaf of bread characters general shape done and have him looking like an actual character I can use in my book.

 Try and get my bird character made for the 1 page that you see it in and possibly the tree it sits in.

Session 2:

 Try and get my duck character completed and the pond that it sits in for the 1 page that it is on.

 Start to create some of the views that I will see the dog character in.

Session 3:

Create some more angles that I would see my bread character in.

Session 4:

 Try and find inspiration for backgrounds for my book and start to create the Kitchen.

 Try to finish the kitchen and create the first page of my book.

Session 5:

 Try and create the 2nd page of my book.

 Start on 3rd page of book.

Session 6:

 Try and finish 3rd page.

 Try and finish page 4

 Start on page 5

Session 7:

 Finish page 6

 Start page 7

Session 8:

 Finish page 7

 Start page 8

Session 9:

 Finish page 8

 Finish page 9

Session 10:

 Finish page 10

 Use the rest of my time available to go back and make the needed corrections.

Health and safety:Your health and safety and that of those around you is very important. Just like in industry, an accident could prevent you from working. Whilst we don’t work in a highly dangerous environment, there are still risks. Some are short term, such as trips and spillages whilst others, such as long term damage to eyesight or back problems, may affect you much later in life.

Consider the risks based on the activities you will be undertaking during the project. Explain how you could prevent them from happening.

Ensure you reference appropriate pieces of legislation, design to protect people at work.

Health and Safety Issue How can you prevent it?

 Computers may have wires hanging around.

 Make sure that all wires are tied behind the computer. Most of these points will apply to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

 Possible eyestrain.

 Make sure to take regular breaks from looking at the computer screen for 5 minutes as suggested by the Display Screen Regulations 1992.

 Possible back problems Make sure to have good posture and sit in the chair correctly, try not to slouch.

 Having open bottles of fluid near electrical equipment Put water in a sealed container in a bag away from equipment.

 Leaving bags around the class room Make sure bags are under a desk out of the way to prevent tripping and accidents from happening.