Vegan Booklet Evaluation

Ellie Dawson

Realised intentionsAfter finishing all of my work and reviewing it to compare it to my intentions. I would say that the majority of my intentions worked really well and turned out how I wished them to be, in fact I would say the overall booklet has actually turned out better than I imagined it to be. For example I did not decide what to do as my front cover until the last week of production, and it turned out to be the best thing in my booklet.

One thing I have realised now that I have pieced all my work together isthat I needed to thing through keeping the theme slightly more consistent,it works together, but there are areas like on my infographics that I could have done slightly differently, for example like the background onmy front cover, I should have made the background for both my info-graphics the same wooden texture to keep the theme on-going and consistent.

Another thing I have realised is that I needed to make my multi-page article a little more interesting, I was aiming to make it look more of an article without colours etc., but what I have now realised is that it needed to be at least slightly more interesting to fit with my theme, because all my other pages have a lot going on with interesting pictures and facts/information.

Audience• Age demographic= 18-35 • Gender= 85% female and 15% maleThis was the given target audience but I did not aim my booklet at just females although they may be the majority of the people to read it, nevertheless, I wanted to aim at both genders and make it very neutral, my colour schemes and information was not aimed towards genders anyway, I tried to make the colour scheme very ‘Earthy` and natural, to give it a Vegan feel as Vegans aim to be very natural within the products they use and the food they eat, so I tried to make the colour scheme have it’s own meaning/feel. I would say my booklet is very Audience appropriate because as a non-vegan I did not know barely anything about Veganism so beginning my Target Audience from the age of 18 means that at 18+ they are going to benefit from my booklet as it will provide information that they did not know.

I would say the aspect of my booklet that appeals most to my audience is my infographic about accidentally Vegan products, which includes really common snack foods and some alcohol which will really surprise my audience, and as my audience is aimed at non-vegans the infographic is perfect to appeal to them because we are telling them that the food and drinks you are having now, you can still have as a Vegan!

ContentIn my opinion there is some really good content in my booklet because it includes the most important facts and figures that will be most likely to draw my Audience in and make them re-think their diet. For example my ‘Accidentally Vegan products` infographic will really encourage people to try veganism because it will make them realise that Vegans really can eat some of the same things as us. A lot of people will not know that the most common snack foods and drinks listed on my infographic are accidentally vegan, as I did not either. This poster especially compared to anything else in my booklet really shows how easy it is to become Vegan and it will alter people’s opinions about thinking that it would really be a challenge. So I would say my content in my booklet has been really successful because y aim was to promote ‘Veganuary` and make people re-consider their diet and at least consider trying Veganism, and I think if people were to see my booklet then it would really help and encourage them to do so because there is a lot of valuable and important information that will make people sit and think.

StyleMy aim for the style of my booklet was to make it appear natural and ‘earthy` as I briefly mentioned before. This was because vegans consume only natural and cruelty-free products so I wanted to give that feel to my booklet so people understood what it was about. I only used two different font types and one from which was the ‘Veganuary` logo font. I did this because I wanted to keep the consistent logo going throughout my booklet because it fitted with my theme, although it did not work for my fact file, back page and multi-page article because it was not clear enough, so I used a basic Arial font for those three.

I also used a quite bright colour scheme for my infographics because I wanted them to stand out. I think this worked quite well because I received positive feedback on my survey about my food infographic and they commented on how the bright colours worked well and looked good.

Skills usedThe skills I have used included; using Photoshop and InDesign.

My Photoshop skills became useful when creating my infographics. This was due to the fact that it needed to edit different images going onto my infographic like my accidentally vegan infographic. I edited and re-sized each image and used ruler guides to put them in place. I also added an effect on the foods/drinks which gave it a cartoon look, you cannot fully tell with some of the products that they are cartoon because some worked better than others, but it still gave them a more crisp and brighter look which I was happy with. I also used my Photoshop skills when creating my second infographic shown below. I created my own stick women using the shape tools, then I made each one a little larger to visually represent how health/un-healthy each diet was. After this I found a food picture for each diet and used the same cartoon effect for each as I did for my other info-graphic. I then created a clipping mask so that each stick woman represented the BMI for each diet and so that it was visually clear what the diet entailed.

When it came to InDesign, I used the basic skills from what I had learned at the start of this year, when inserting images I first drew a box the appropriate size toinsert the image into. When inserting text, I drew my text boxes and dragged thetext in and adjusted it to the right size and order. I used guides to stipulate my layout of my main article so that I had columns in the right places and it made my text so that it was all in a neat order.

Skills developedIn terms of InDesign I would definitely say this project has helped me gain some skills. When putting the booklet into InDesign I was re-sizing and adjusting the quality of the images, this helped me gain the basic skills of how to place and adjust things to make them up to their best quality, because before I did not know a lot about InDesign and how to use it to it’s best abilities.

I have also learnt a lot about Photoshop, I learnt more about creating clipping masks, using shapes to create a text path and explored more about what you can do with text in terms of different textures, strokes, drop shadows, into much more detail and analysis than beforehand. Furthermore,

Areas for improvementIn terms of improvement there are a few areas I would make some slight changes to, first of all my theme is consistent but not I have pieced all my work together I have realised I could have done things a little differently in order to keep the consistency ongoing. I would use the wooden textured background that I have on my front cover, back cover and fact file, for my other pages too that require a background, especially my ‘BMI` infographic, I think if it had the wooden textured background it would fit better with the theme of my booklet and the other pages, my fact file in particular as it is next to that in the booklet, it would just make my booklet flow that little more.Another thing I would make a small change to is my fact file, it was suggested in my peer feedback that I should make the blue font green to fit with the rest of my theme, which was consistent parts of green throughout to make my booklet all tie together with a fitting colour pallet.

Planning/preparation and time management In my opinion I would say my planning was very thorough and successful as I went through with all plans and they all worked out really well. I am also happy with my planning because I worked out what I wanted each page to be so the layout fitted and was appropriate for my audience.To carry out my planning I made a production schedule to work out what page I was working on each day so that I had everything finished on time including some contingency time at the end. I also gathered the information needed for both my infographics (booklet and online version) from ‘veganuary.com’. I did the same with my fact file on a word document so that I could design the layout of them all in Photoshop then have the text ready to insert when at that stage. I further carried out pagination planning which was vital to my booklet and it’s layout because I had a multi-page article written and a double page infographic so pagination was important so I knew that the article was all together and so that the infographic was spread across the two middle pages to ensure it was clear and easy to read.

Before planning I also prepared for production to start by carrying out the appropriate research into Veganism so I knew all the information that I needed to know when writing an article and a fact file to ensure all my information was true. My research concentrated a lot on the cruelty on animals and the different experiments carried out on animals.

Planning and preparation was also a really helpful aid to time keeping, it made it so that all my ideas were set and all my page planning was laid out perfectly ready for me to create the pages. It also made each day at college easier because I knew exactly what I needed to do and when it needed to be finished by. This made the whole process of making the booklet easier and more manageable.

Overall I would say my time management was kept well because I got everything finished on time with a few hours spare as planned to check the booklet over.

Reviewing work in progressIn terms of reviewing my work in progress throughout making my booklet I requested peer feedback from my teachers and pupils around me and we also created a survey for people to fill in to find out other people’s opinions of our work. The survey really helped me understand what I needed to improve because it gave me an insight into different things like; people’s favourite aspect of the book, consistency of style, what could be improved etc.. So it helped me realise certain things that could perhaps be improved that I did not see before, like for example the background of my online infographic, it has now come to my attention that I could have made it fit with my theme by making it a wooden textured background like my fact file. Another point was made about my fact file also, which was the text highlighted in blue could have been in green instead to fit with my consistent theme.

Whilst creating my infographic I printed out some samples to see what the images of the products turned out like. I did this because I added a cartoon effect to them and I wanted to see what it looked like printed and if you could clearly see the appearance of the effect.

Survey and FeedbackI feel the feedback really helped me realise what improvements I needed to do within my booklet and it made me feel more confident about my booklet because the majority of people said the best aspect of my booklet was my front cover which I thought too, so it confirmed that for me. All the people who answered also said that they thought my theme was consistent which was my aim and now I have made the improvements that were suggested it is even more so.

Technical competencies and creative abilities

My creative abilities have certainly developed during this project and it has helped me become more creative. I would say my creative abilities when planning my project were good because I knew exactly what I wanted to d and I had a picture in my head of how my booklet was going to be, but I was worried about not being able to produce this work that I had in my head. Nevertheless my technical competencies ended up producing a lot better work than I had imagined they would. For example my double page infographic turned out a lot better than I thought it would because as I went on to create it in Photoshop I kept gathering more and more ideas along the way which would improve it and this helped make it more successful and I used a lot of technical competencies in Photoshop and it has helped me gain more complicated skills.Although one aspect of my booklet did turn out exceptionally well compared to what I imagined as I struggled with ideas for my front cover. I was really happy with how my front cover turned out because I had not even thought of the idea I was editing the image using double exposure, I did this to try and create meaning and for effect of emotion when non-vegans were looking at the image. I then added the wooden textured background and the title and realised it could be my front cover.I then decided I needed a tag line if it was going to be the front cover to grab the Audience's attention even more. In my opinion I would say that was also my Creative ability to think of my own slogan to match Veganuary’s own tag line ‘Try vegan.Stay vegan’