Studio Brief 2: Tell an Untold Story - Project Proposal

Picture Book Title: 
Ways to make your pet slightly happier (currently unsure though)

Idea: What is your picture book about?: 
Based around the idea that pet owners are crazy and the stupid accessories that are available for pets. 
How pet owners make up problems that their pets might have e.g Goldfish wants to go for a walk/needs a change of scenery. 

Intent: What are you trying to achieve?: 
Humor/Satire
Comment on stupidity of (Some) pet accessories and how the pet shop industry is increasingly making money out of unnecessary extras.

Structure: How might this book function?:
Double page spread based on each pet and accessories you can buy for them.
I intend to use text aswell as imagery to convey humor. 

These ideas are based on my research into:
Pet accessories available in pet shops and online, news stories, 

In order to develop these ideas, my research over christmas will be...:
Online research into more pet accessories and news stories. Also watch the film Best in show(recommended film about owners that treat their pets like their children) and more Pet shop visits. 

Self Evaluation

Studio Brief 2: Tell an Untold Story - Group Critique with Kristyna Baczynski

Issues Discussed At The Tutorial

• Pet Shops in Leeds - Snakes and Adders
• Town Mouse vs City Mouse / Rich vs Poor (Flushed Away)
• Price Of Cages and how they effect happiness levels of pets (Do they?)
• Best In Show Film (Relationships with Pets)
• Does money spent on pets effect their personality?
• Pimp My Hamster Cage
• Different pets (Bird cages, Tanks, Hutches) - Double Page spreads for each pet?

From this critique I have gained alot of possible areas to explore for the subject of my book. I have already done a great deal of research into pet shops in my surrounding area, however it was useful to hear about a pet shop (Snakes and Adders) from someones first hand experience. I found it really helpful in terms of receiving ideas about gimmicks such as Pimp My Cage which would contribute alot to the tone of voice created in my book, and I really like the idea of the double page spreads for each pet, which would help to pace the book out. 

Another area im interested in looking at is the personality of pets and how it changes with the amount of money spent on them. I am going to watch creature comforts, created by Nick Park and Aardman Animation, to gain some inspiration and hopefully learn how humor is conveyed. I feel that this is very relevant to my current project. 

Studio Brief 2: Tell an Untold Story - Pet Accessories Research & Idea Development

After the peer review and the conversation during the session, I decided to look do some research into stupid pet products that are available reflecting on the world of pet shops and pet owners. 

 18 Weird, Wacky and Crazy Pet Product Designs

Most Expensive Dog Houses

The 15 Most Ridiculous Things People Buy For Their Pets

Devoted pet owner spends £300 to save his GOLDFISH after it became constipated

12 Ways to make your pet hate you

Although my research into these products so far have been very Internet based, It has been very useful in terms of backing up my concept and finding out what is actually available.

Studio Brief 2: Tell an Untold Story - Peer Review

Peer Review Feedback:

 

To Do:

• More Visits to Pet Shops
• Talk To People - Very valuable research

Truthfully I didn't find this session very helpful in terms of getting feedback on my ideas, as I went into the session with a variety. However, I did find that the conversation between me and my peers helped my project alot. My peer review session took place with 2 of my course members, 1 of which worked in a pet shop 5 years prior to the course, which was an amazing opportunity for me to talk to her. Some notes I made during our conversation:

• The pet shop industry is a cut throat world, alot of competition, independent vs corporate?
• also competition with online stores
• Pet owners are arseholes - They think they know what is best for their pet (they don't)
• Their world is their animal
• Alot of stupid stuff you can buy for pets, Frozen Yogurt for Dogs, Dog sun cream. Pets do not need these things, (interesting that these are human products for animals).  

In terms of moving my project forward, I have gathered more research about stupid pet accessories and pet owners doing anything for their pets, which I think is now the key theme in my investigation. 

Studio Brief 2: Tell an Untold Story - Research Trip

For my research trip, me and some friends went to Ottley for the day where we were going to be visiting 3 locations; A garden center, a pet shop, and a forest. I was very unsure about what my book was going to be about so I wanted to see all 3 places before I decided.

Overall I chose the pet shop because I just felt that it had more potential for a story. Some notes I made whilst there:

• very cluttered environment
• very colorful, lots of toys and decorative ornaments for fish tanks etc (alot of neon colors)
• dog toys are weird concepts, random shapes and textures?
• alot of pointless items? pet accessories etc

Photographs: I found photography to be really useful, because of the scarce cluttered nature of the pet shop, I would not have been able to record everything manually. I tried to capture the colorful craziness that I experienced whilst there, and also various typologies that were there. 

Drawings - when drawing, I wanted to focus more on the environment on the pet shop, rather than the actual animals, recording things like wet floor signs, and cluttered shelves.  I think that using drawing as a research tool was really helpful, because it helped me make sense of the cluttered environment that I was in. I found that because of all the colors and objects that it was quite a warm welcoming place (not sure why), which creates an interesting contrast to the negative idea of animals living in cages. 

Unfortunately there was no one in the pet shop to have a conversation with, however being with my friends was quite interesting as they had some comments about pet shops that stuck with me;

"Imagine being a glass box all the time, it'd be horrible"

"I can't believe anyone would buy this shit"

There was also a miserable lady behind the counter who told me I couldn't take pictures, but that's it. 

Overall I found my trip to the pet shop to be really effective in terms of research. I think that being inside the pet shop really helped me to understand the environment of the shop, which I would not have found just looking at pictures. Some possible ideas I have gained from this visit:

• creating images that show clutter and intensity of pet shop, the insane variety of accessories available for pets.
• Things that pets will not appreciate, yet owners buy them anyway. Pets opinions towards these? 
• The irrationality of the pet shop industry. 
• The lengths that pet owners will go to to make their animals happy

Studio Brief 1: One Week Book - Final Outcome

Our final idea was a narrative based around the cross eyed car washer, and his naivety to what goes on in car parks. When creating my art work for the book, I experimented with dots and lines to create texture which I found out is an effective technique to use in Screen Printing. I also wanted to give my image something else, despite my attempts at creating a bleak, boring scene. 

Initial mockups, focusing on composition

I found it really challenging to prep our images for exposure, because of the complexity of the process, different colored inks, what colour goes on top, do the images line up etc. However everyone in my group created a successful set of images and the process was really smooth.

Our image on a screen

Overall I thought that the whole screen printing process was amazing, as i'd never done it before. I think the idea of printing something yourself is a great thing and something that I will definitely be using in my future work. Truthfully however, I do not think that our final outcome was successful. I think that the concept behind it was uninteresting (in an uninteresting way) and that the narrative we attempted to create wasn't communicated well enough for someone to understand the story. I think that our choice of a grey and blue colour scheme was really fitting however as we were trying to implement themes of boredom. I also think that my personal contribution was disappointing as they were merely place fillers in the story.

Final Print

Finished Product

Studio Brief 1: One Week Book - Initial Ideas & Development

Initial Ideas for book

From our research trip, one of the main things that stuck with us was how boring our day was looking at car parks. We really liked the idea of making the book humorous based on how boring car parks are, featuring it on the boring cross eyed car washer that we met - 'Nothing really happens here'. 

Idea Development

When developing our ideas, my group struggled quite alot to come up with a finalized concept which I found quite stressful, however we each made some roughs and decided which aspects were successful from each. I decided to make a story board creating a narrative for the book, based on our research. I feel that my idea had some successful elements to it, for example the way that humor was conveyed, although needed more development, as I usually tend to visualize a final outcome straight away (which is something I need to improve on).

I think that this time as a group, we did not communicate as effectively as we could have which may hinder our final outcome. However we did reach an agreement to make a narrative based on the Car Washer, as he was quite a prominent character. Although I feel that our idea may be uninteresting, It is the best we are able to come with considering time scale.

Studio Brief 1: One Week Book - Research Trip

For our research trip my groups theme was Car Parks in leeds, and we visited 6 car parks in total. I took some photographs while on the trip because I find it more of a useful tool in terms of documenting. I also collected some items, made some notes and made conversation with people to find out as much as we could about car parks. 

Whilst at the car parks:

• We tried to establish if there were a certain type of people who use certain car parks, however because of the time of day they were very empty.
• We discovered that they are very very very very very very boring places. 
• Car Parks are suicide spots 
• We found many used condoms on the floor (so yeah) and alot of drug paraphernalia 
• We spoke to a man who runs a car washing service in the multi-story car park who stands there all day waiting for cars. 

I also did some quick sketches of architecture, people and objects. I used a biro to do my sketches 

From this trip we gained alot of information about car parks and think that we worked really successfully as a group. I think we have gained a good range of subjects to base our one week book on also.