3rd Year Collaborative project

For this collaborative project we decided, as a whole year group, to create postcards based on our favourite book or poem (a sentence from a poem or a scene from a book, etc.) and will be using the method of screen printing with a limited colour palette of 2-3 colours. The decision of choosing the type of item we will create for the project as well as the process of making it has took some time, though there has not been any significant problems in our communications as a year group and made a private Facebook group to discuss the next steps and potential changes to our project.

Specifications for the Collaborative Project:

- A6 landscape

- 3mm white border

- Three layers of colours for separation – Rose, Turquoise, Payne’s Grey

- Website name in bottom left corner of the image, not intersecting the border

I do not read a lot of books myself so I will not be choosing any fictions books, so the other option is to choose is children’s books, as they are very simple in terms of storytelling and narrative. The children’s book I will be looking into will be “The Three Little Pigs” with its easy story that can be easily illustrated. My knowledge and experience in screen printing is not great so I will not be able to do complex layer separation with the limited colour palette in Photoshop (as this process is not in my strengths). I will try my best when it comes to the process of colour separation, though this will depends on how detailed/complex the illustration will be. 

Group organisation on our private group on Facebook for all of us to communicate and to resolve any potential problems in regards to the collaborative project. 

Thumbnails and Ideas

Quick thumbnails using basic shapes to illustrate the characters

Chosen illustration and outline

Finalised outline which will be put forward for the process of selecting negative spaces and correspond them to appropriate colours within the limited colour palette. There will be different tones of grey which will determine the shade of the colour (light and dark tones). 

Colour separation

Turquoise layer separation

Rose layer seperation

Payne's Grey layer seperation

Separating each space for the colours was somewhat of a long process as I find it slightly difficult to manage them, which is the reason why I made a simple illustration for my postcard as I do find it difficult on more complex images which I had done in previous projects from last year and from 1^st year.

Final image with all the layers visible ready for screen printing. The varying grey tones were changed to black at the last minute as I asked to see if there are any necessary changes needed. It appears that the group were unsure how well varying tones would print and was advised to have it all black, or use dot-tone to keep the shading and so I decided to make the layers in black colour just to make it easier for both me and the others who are in charge of handling the files and printing them. 

The process of all our postcards getting printed.

Conclusion and thoughts on the project

During the process of making the postcards after the announcement of the specifications, it all comes down to our individual responsibility and initiative to get it done and have it emailed to one of our classmates who will collect all of our images/Photoshop files in preparation for screen printing.

There have been a few updates during the development of the project over time through our private Facebook group page such as clarification on recent changes, as well as reminding those who needs to know what to do if they were not present at the meetings where we discussed about the project. The organisation of this project is somewhat loose, though as I pointed out before, this all comes down to our initiative and time management as there is no outside help from the tutors, as this is our responsibility as a year group to ensure this project is under control through organisation. 

I had no trouble with the work as everything was explained with clear instructions of the specifications we need to meet. Initially I thought things might not work out as well, where in the beginning of this project most of us are pretty indecisive on what to do and kind of shrug the project off until later on when some of us need clarification of what is happening. The project did went off on a slow start but we all managed to pick up the pace when we decided on what we want to make by voting. There could of have been a lot more contribution between each other, though with simple instructions to follow, this project was easily doable by using our initiative.