{

Veganuary Evaluation

Nicole Tunningley

When I compare some of my work to that what I have compiled on my Moodboard I can see some similarities. For example, the back of my booklet has splashes of colour that resemble the scheme I had on my Moodboard and the third font I have presented was one that I used for my pull quotes in my articles and I still think that it works quite well.

When planning to produce my work I decided that I wanted to make it quite earthy and natural looking, I think I accomplished this by giving my work a scrapbook style this also, I believe made my work quite fun and quirky.

Planning“I also like this rustic look that has been created throughout the booklet, it also works well because that style is consistent throughout “

I did some preparation for my Veganuary work such as researching the organization, doing a mind map for ideas on the contents, looking at a possible colour scheme and font type. This proved helpful later on when it came to making my pieces including references that I had found online to other vegans or helpful videos/articles.

For my three main pieces (Infographic, main article and factfile) I split it into cosmetics, controversy and environmental impact, which promotes veganism showing how better for the environment it is. I believe this variation to be better than just having the same topic (e.g. health) split across the entire booklet as people might lose interest.

My preparation proved worthwhile with the results I got from my survey on my font, colour scheme and images to which all my responses were positive.

Preparation

Infographic feedback

“The Infographic is really, really clever. I think it will also appeal to males, not just females. The colour scheme is not too intense and the layout is pretty accurate to how a website would appear. Its really informative, going into just the right amount of detail but not too much for the faint hearted”.“I think the Infographic is very good and is effect and eye catching because it takes up the whole page and uses a bold font and lots of graphics”.

“Your Infographic is great, I like how you styled it in a website kind of way. It’s got some amazing facts about the cosmetics that people use. Maybe you could tell us what the vegan synthetic alternatives are instead of us telling us that there is an alternative”.All of my responders were positive about my infographic piece, some complimenting the style and layout I chose to present it in (website). They like the colour scheme, fonts and information also.The only suggested improvement was to state what the vegan synthetic alternatives were, if I were to improve this piece this is something I will take into consideration.

I used the ‘Superdrug’ website as inspiration for my infographic layout and what

categories/sub-categories are required on a site of this profession.

When comparing my Infographic work to a professional one such as Lush’s I can see that mine is more detailed whereas Lush’s is more minimalist (restricting colour scheme and focusing on numbers), Also, the content of my work concentrates more on the ingredients used in cosmetics rather than the statistics of ingredient popularity. The colour scheme is quite similar to mine in the sense that we didn’t decide to use too bold prominent colours such as dark greens or neon shades.

I can compare my Infographic piece to one I had done previously, where I created a shopping aisle with an array of ‘protein alternatives’ and how much protein the average adult is recommended to consume on a daily basis on the trolley. This made it so that the viewer was to pick and choose what they like and try to get it to add to the 50g, this infographic is a good one to compare to because it is in a similar sort of format. To clarify my first infographic was done to resemble a supermarket aisle whereas my Veganuary infographic was made to look like an online cosmetics distribution store.

Existing product comparison

Considering I made my Factfile before I decided what theme I wanted throughout my booklet, it is obvious that it isn’t going to work as well as my other pages which resemble the theme.

When looking at my feedback I see that a lot of people have commented on the colour scheme being different, in some cases even stating that it’s difficult to read. I have also seen people question why I have placed the link/credit the way I have, I know this is due to lack of room but I have now due to feedback realized it does ruin the text flow

FactfileFeedback

“The Factfile is great, gives you some amazing facts. However, the use of colours is a bit hard to read against the background colour. For example, the link on the bottom left corner is very squished up and I can’t really see what it says”.

“I think the Infographic is very good and is effect and eye catching because it takes up the whole page and uses a bold font and lots of graphics”.

Even though the Factfile isn’t following the theme that has been set, it works really well. The colours complement each together making each sentence as appealing to read as the next, there is still use of images to keep the audience interested. There are some words that may not be understandable for people with less knowledge; this is considerable to be changed. Things like ‘excrement’.

My factfile when comparing these two appears to be more similar to the one on the left due to the text being more eye-catching and central in comparison to the images. This is considered to be a factfile typography.

One thing that is similar between my factfile and the two professional ones is that they all have an image or texture in the background, my background being the least obvious.

The colour scheme is different amongst all of the pieces the abortion factfile having dark, impactful colours, the animal fact file having simple block colours and mine having earthy natural colours which relate it to my subject.

When comparing the images between my factfile and the animal fact file I have noticed that they have used photographs and one digital image whereas mine has silhouettes of relatable images.Existing product

comparison

When considering my feedback I have evaluated that my article suits the design throughout my booklet but areas such as the beginning are quite dull due to overuse of text or lack of images.

If I were to improve this piece I would look at getting some better pull quotes or replacing them with intriguing imagery

Main articleFeedback

“Both of the articles are informative and I like the pull quotes as they split the text up and make it less daunting and off putting to read, they actually make the article more interesting and encourage you to read the full article. I also think the use of images and the shopping list graphic make the pages more interesting to read”

“The article is strong, but the pull quotes don’t grab my attention in a positive way. The font however, is beautiful, its slightly feminine but very appealing and all three fonts used work really well together making it aesthetically pleasing. The use of language is effective, its formal but understandable”

“Both articles are great, you get to learn a healthy vegan diet and you get to learn what happens to animals when human decide to use them to produce some products for human use. I would add a few more images because on the right hand side of page 4, there is too much information and no images so it looks a bit dull and draining...”

This professional article does look, in contrast to mine, more professional but the layout of this particular piece of media would be better suited to my additional article ‘How to Vegan HEALTHILY’ as my multi-page doesn’t require being broken down as much as my how to does (As that can be split into steps).

This piece does have more images than mine and they have fit their text around their images, I on the other hand opted to fit my images around my text as I thought that the article itself was the most important part.

Both I and whoever designed this article decided to used different fonts for headings and subheadings to add variation amongst the style of the text. As I went for a scrapbook style I decided to have a handwriting style font for the heading in a quite thick inky font so it appears as it more eye-catching. My sub-heading font on the other hand, I decided to used a more stylized, artistic font which suits the theme but also makes it seem more professional. This article has done the same as they have clearly done the same thing but in the opposite order as I have done mine.

Existing product comparison

At the beginning of the project I decided to focus on the contents of the booklet, particularly the infographic. I did so by prioritizing my production time around these elements. My infographic due to the amount of detail on it, took the most amount of time (almost 2 full days). I feel due to this that my front and back covers make have suffered the consequences of this decision, I did my Factfile quite early on in the project and before I had developed a theme (sketchbook). This therefore in my eyes and even in some others makes it seem slightly inconsistent.

Time Management

Just before I started my work I decided to save drafts throughout to ensure that I could see a clear development at the end there were other good reasons for this method. When I first planned my article I did not intend to write as much as I did and so after I broke my text down I realized that I had written too much, I then noticed my ‘talk about ways to convert into veganism healthily’ at the bottom of the page. I had reached my necessary amount of text for my article so I decided to turn this subject into a how to which is now present in my booklet.

For my infographic piece I decided to make my graphics on a different document (.psd) to the one I was working on at the time this then allowed me to transform the image if it didn’t fit in it’s place on the infographic.

Reviewing Work in progress

Draft 1

Draft 2

My technical competencies are seen throughout all of my work, particularly in areas with heavy text (Articles, infographic, factfile). This is because I would have had to align the text to fit around other elements of the page such as images or bigger texts like headlines/sub-titles.

One other technical aspect I presented in my work was with my infographic, to ensure that this piece fit perfectly on the page and took note of the spine in the middle I created a grid. This grid (seen in the screenshot) boxed up the borders, images, text and titles so it seemed more symmetrical and realistic when completed.

It took technical skill when creating particular aspects of my infographic, for example my icons I made by rotoscoping existing stock images, adjusting the colour palette and giving it the animalistic element

Technically, I think my work flows quite well throughout (aside from a few elements such as link aligning on my factfile).Technical

Competencies

An additional technical competency can be seen with my contents page, this is the only page in my booklet that I made completely in the middle of the page so I had to align not only the images but the text box and contents to the middle so it seems more professional

This article, in comparison to my own, has some better technical qualities. They (Cosmopolitan) has split their article into two columns on all pages, their image takes up more of the page than any of mine do and therefore has more of a visual impact. My article is a lot more ‘wordy’ particularly on the first page this shows with the addition of the pull quote, even with that I believe that the pull quote from this article plays the part a little better.

On the other hand my how-to guide in comparison to this piece achieves more design wise than my article piece. It does so by varying how much space each pull quote takes and has four images differing in size throughout the piece.

Technical competencies:Comparison

My creative ability is mostly expressed in areas such as my infographic, my first two pages (Contents and About) and my front and back cover. This is because I had to put more thought into the layout and construction of these pieces so they suit a certain theme or look like a particular subject (infographic as webpage) and creating combinations of product and animal characteristic as a familiarity/link to the animal for the audience.

It is also seen (though be it more discretely) in my ‘How-to’ article in which I present all the items mentioned on a shopping list to emphasis it’s importance.

My creativity can also be seen with my font and colour choice which are frequently considered well thought out when browsing through my audience feedback

Even small elements throughout my pieces such as the tape and border on the front image making it looked like it had been stuck on, the handwritten fonts and earthy colours link it back to the scrapbook theme.

Creative ability

Resources:

I looked at the Veganuary website for facts and images that I may require throughout my work

I watched the ‘Kat Von D responds to Vegan controversy’ video to help me with ideas for my main article, this also proved helpful as she spoke about taxidermy also.

The YouTube channel is referenced in my multi-page article (‘Vegan Stereotypes vs. Actual Vegan’) this helped me develop my article elements for the vast amount of different vegan controversies.

I looked at Kiera Rose’s YT channel for references to the food and cosmetic aspect of a vegan lifestyle.

I also in my multi-page article referenced PETA’S ‘If Vegans

Said The Stuff Meat-Eaters Say’ this allowed me to bring a

comical more uplifting vibe to the aspect of vegan

controversies.

I used Down to Earth for statistics and facts on my factfile

of veganism environmental impact, as credited on my work.

I used Health’s article ‘12 Things You Need to Know Before Going Vegan’ to assist me when

writing my ‘How to Vegan HEALTHILY’ guide.