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:There will not be any costs involved with this project because I am only using the computer to illustrate my work. I do not need to pay for anything during production.

Available resources:I will need to use a computer to create my work and I will need to use the internet to get images and other sources for ideas. I will also need Photoshop because I am using it to create my illustrations. I have all these things available for me to be able to produce the children’s book. I will be using my previous planning like my storyboards and mind map to help with ideas.

Quantity:My book will be first sold in a small batch at about 20-50 copies to see how sales go, if they are successful and the book becomes popular with the people who bought it I would like it to be produced in a larger quantity. This is because there would be no point in making 1,000’s of copies of the book if only a few were sold. After the books had sold I would look at the customers reviews then decide how many more should be made based on how popular it becomes.

Audience and Target Market:My audience is children but my book should mainly attract the attention of adults, as they are the ones who will buy it, it must look like something that someone would want to buy for their children. The age range would be a small child, around the age of when they start to learn to read because of the basic text or for parents to read to their children who cannot read yet. This would make the age range from 1-5 years old. There is not a gender that the book would mainly appeal to as it does not show things that only boys or only girls would like, it also does not really mention gender in the text and in the few times it does it does not make a difference to the story and what gender it would appeal to. Quality Factors:To ensure quality in my book I would need to create a good plan and stick by it to make sure that I do not get behind and loose time resulting in rushed, lower quality work. Throughout production I can go back and compare previous pages to make sure that my work has a consistent style and always look a really high quality.

Codes of Practice:The Publishers Association code of practice states how publishers must treat authors but also how authors must produce high quality work in an amount of time that they had arranged. I aim for my work to be the best quality and for it to be done by the deadline. It talks about the ways in which the publisher must be fair with the author to prevent the book being sold in any way the author not agreeing with but it also states how the author must be aware of the thing they have agreed to and once agreed these are then set as laws and must be followed.

Regulation:During production I must consider all laws, acts and regulations to make sure that my book is suitable to be published. Some acts that may apply when making my book may be the obscene publications act and the equality act. I have looked at the acts and understood what would fall into them and my book, I have created my book in a way to avoid them going against any of these for it to be best suited for a young child. If my book had any pieces or small parts to it that could be removed then my book would have to be regulated by the toy safety directive to ensure it is safe.

Copyright:I will not come across any copyright problems during production. I am not using any images in my book that are not made by me and I am not using text downloaded from the internet. The story has been developed in many ways, not just in books but also in all media and as it was created in the 1800’s it will not hold any copyright laws.

Ethical Issues:The book should not create any ethical issues. It does not show personal opinions or beliefs and also does not talk about others beliefs in any way, negatively or not. There are no personal opinions because having personal opinions in the story may cause ethical issues if they seem to be against what others think. I don’t think that having personal opinions or cultural and religious beliefs is a good thing to add into a children’s book because it may cause them to believe things that their family is against causing more problems.

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?

Computer: I will be using a computer to make my children’s book.  Yes  

 Photoshop: I am using Photoshop to create the illustrations for my book.  Yes   Script: I will be using my script to decide in the text to go on each page for my book.  Yes   Storyboard: My storyboard will be useful for me as it has all my pages planned out.  Yes   Memory Stick: I will need to have my worked backed up on a memory stick to make sure it does not get lost.  Yes  

     

     

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:

 Create scenes for first few pages that use the same scene

If finished scenes work on characters

 

Session 2:

 Finish scenes

 Finish characters

Session 3:

Compare page styles, make sure they are the same and are good quality.

 Make any changes

Finish any pages that need to be finished

 

Session 4:

Start next pages

 Next scenes are the one used in my test page. Use it for ideas.

 Change if needed.

 Start next scenes

Session 5:

 Finish scenes started last session

 Create last scenes

 

 

Session 6:

 Add characters to scenes

 Make any characters that have not already

Use Photoshop to adjust any characters that need it

 

Session 7:

 Add text to the pages

 Check spelling

 Make sure that it looks fine and text is in the right place

 

Session 8:

Continue adding text

 Make any changes to the font if I find a better looking font.

 

 

Session 9:

 Spelling, font, size corrections

 Compare pages to make sure they are all the same style

 Make any changes related to the style

 

Session 10:

 Check through and make any changes

Make sure the book is the best quality

 

 

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?

 Problems relating to using the computer too long, e.g. eye strain.

 The Display Screen Equipment 1992 is an act that puts in guidelines to prevent any problems caused by display screen equipment. Having breaks will help to prevent problems, keeping a good distance away from the screen and keeping the brightness at a good level is also a good thing to do.

 Trip hazards from things like wires.

 There are rules on the safe practices in studios and workshops to ensure things like trips do not happen. I will not be working on a laptop so will not need to have a power cable stretched across to a plug socket. Trips can also happen from everyday items like bags or coats so I will keep mine out of the way at all times.