No One Gives a Toss About the Midlands Evaluation

The outcome of my FMP is pretty much nowhere near what I had imagined it to be once getting our initial brief. The process of my project has been really helped due to very useful Crits and Tutorials as well as pure development work in my sketchbook.

However, my time with the project has been consistently hindered by ongoing financial problems and (other) work extensions. It's annoying that I have had to mention this excuse for the majority of my first year on Viscom.

I set out to get my teeth into Illusration after many 'side tracking' projects. I really wanted to improve the quality of my Illustration. Thankfully, I believe I have achieved this and that it is evident throughout my backup work. Through others opinions as well as my own, the standard of my drawings for the Zine are definately the strongest, standout point.

During my final crit it was suggested that I choose to handwrite the text within the zine. I did just that, but in honesty after producing some final print outs I would have still preferred some use of a typeface. Perhaps this is down to me generally being unfazed by my own handwriting which I see everyday.

I am generally satisfied with the final outcome of my Zine. Colour printouts work very well seeing as my Illustrations are very colour orientated in order to represent the certain Footballs clubs well with their Shirts. Zines have a raw and authentic appeal when mass printed in Black and White, so it's a shame that my B&W versions couldn't fit that standard as none of the colours could be represented properly.

An overbearing thought whilst producing my Zine was that perhaps I should have produced a book. I felt that, sometimes, my presentation would have been more suited to a book rather than a 'raw' Zine. However given the topic of my FMP (football) a Zine is quite suited if one was to imagine a pile of them being handed out on a Matchday.

With this in mind, with more time I would have preferred the freedom to have been able to change the direction of my project towards producing a book. Also during my first tutorial we covered a lot of interesting material to do with the Midlands (other than Football) which would have been nice to incorporate. In my final Zine I only really touched upon the other material by playing with the 'Brummie Brickie' stereotype.

I'm not convinced this is my best work but I am very satisfied as even I can notice an improvement in my Image making skills and so overall, considering I wanted this project to improve these areas, I consider this a successful project.