Final Major Project Evaluation

When looking back on my final major project proposal, although I have evolved and adapted many elements significantly, my main ‘Project Outline’ has stayed very concrete and accurate through out this entire process that was a primary goal of mine. The main focus of my project was to create an editorial and beauty coffee table stylebook that, through make up, hair and fashion styling gave those of all ages, male and female, the confidence and strength to belief in themselves and gave them inspiration to create their own ‘superhero self’.

At the beginning of this project I knew that, to create a book, time management would be a vital skill. Although I was a little off schedule compared to the ‘Plan of Action’ in my proposal, I think that staying as close to this as possible, reflecting back to it and seeing mentors every week considerably helped to keep the whole process more under control than in previous units I have undertaken at university. For example incidences have occurred in previous years where my time management became a lower priority. Therefore my work appeared rushed and something I was not proud of and the grades reflected this. From the beginning of third year I planned to make a new start and really knuckle down as I did not want this experience to happen again.  

Frequent communication with mentors and other peers is also one thing that I think has given me solid guidance and understanding of how to push my ideas further, even if at times the constructive criticism was hard to take it and stressful to deal with, it made me work harder and improve each concept academically and practically as well as my own skills.

As well as this preparing in advance, such as contacting photographers over the Christmas break, was something that, I think, helped to strengthen my performance as I knew I had begun to make connection and collaborate with reliable, professional people that could support me. This too is something that I have learnt to really consider as in previous units I have taken images myself that were not as professional and beautiful as I envisaged but due to this unit and collaborating I do feel my photography skills have gained significantly.

Although this was a positive to my performance there were also many a time when issues occurred due to not thinking as thoroughly I should have. Getting clear dates for models and photographer to co inside was extremely stressful as a few incidences happened when models would cancel last minute. Reflecting back on this I now see that I have learnt that there is no point wasting time panicking or crying, which did happen on a few occasions, but to get right to the problem and solve it which is something that, before this unit, I had never been able to do alone. I feel this is because I have gained such independence during my time at university and have faced many problems that, in the end, I manage to over come.

Something else I noticed when reflecting back to my proposal was that, I originally wanted my book to be of a large portrait size. This changed the more research I did on layouts and my competitors, advice from mentors and exhibitions I attended. I am now very pleased with having chosen a large square as this makes the book the contemporary, eye catching, coffee table style, beauty focused theme that I had hoped to achieve.

Another issue that I discovered was the amount of different elements I had thought I was capable of during the writing of my proposal which looking back was quite unrealistic. I found out during the testing period of my process that I had to change the path of my project slightly. This was by removing most of the special effects elements as I felt as though, not only was my special effects work not up to a high, quality standard I wanted but that my book was becoming a little mixed and was straying away from the editorial, beauty aspects I really needed to be my main focus for the viewer. This is something that in the future I plan to work on further to develop more skills in the special effects area of make up. I plan on going back to the LifeCast Ltd special effects company at Elstree Studio where I completed my work based learning unit to do this.

I have also learnt many new valuable skills through this whole process that I can now use in my future careers and within the industry. I have really tried to push myself this unit into uncomfortable territories that I knew, as a make up artist, I needed to get over and face my fears of. For example working on people other than relatives and friends but unfamiliar faces. Not only has this made me gain a better understanding of different face, lips and eye shape but also given me confidence to talk and work with new people, which after many challenging and long days of trials and shoots wasn’t as scary and intimidating as I thought. This prejudgement and over thinking aspect of myself is something that I am very aware of and is a real issue for me but I feel as though I have begun to develop this for the better.

I feel as though my IT skills have also developed considerable over this unit, especially after attending the helpful IT lessons supplied. This has never been a strength of mine as I do struggle with technology at times due to not being as patient as I should be. I have the tendency to panic when I get confused and I don’t learn as quickly as I hope to. This often lets my work down so I decided early on to really focus on learning these techniques such as Photoshop, InDesign and social media concepts. I now feel that I can confidently work with these programs to create the basics and I am now planning to continue to learn post-university to develop this even more as I have purchased the programs on my own laptop. To now have these skills also looks very good on a CV, which I can now add to mine as many job requirements in the make up industry, such as PR or assistant positions, contains IT skills such as these. Another element and previous unit that, I found, helped with this project was the trend package we had to create at the beginning of third year. I used this new skill to help me research in depth through out my major project as well as writing the intro to my book using websites such as WGSN and Trendstop for inspiration and guidelines. Trend forecasting is something I hope to continue in the future in my own time as it was something I found very interesting and enjoyable.

A main threat that I could not have foreseen was illness and personal issues. During my scheduled weeks of shoot I managed get the flu which I tried to push through but knew it was not wise to make my condition worse or even spread it to my creative team. I decided to think realistically and professionally and took a short time to recover. Although I did not waste this valuable time and instead spent hours on the phone re scheduling date and models. This was a very stressful and frustrating period but it was a good lesson as this is a possibility in the make up industry and health and safety has to be considered.

The challenge I think I under estimated the most was the difficultly and stress of actually producing a book as my final piece. Initially, I naively assumed that this would be simple but I was very much mistaken. The fear of the printing company not being reliable with delivery or the painful wait for the book to arrive, the paper or inking not being the high quality I need for my images, the struggle to find companies that printed books of an unusual size at a affordable price and the software to create the layout being too confusing and technically for me were just a few issues that I had not foreseen. I think found this so very difficult because the process of printing, once order, was out of my hands and I was not in control of my project for that period of time. Although this was an incredibly stressful process it was a very enlightening experience that I can now take forward in the future to always work hard and be prepared for anything to have its possible problems.

This process and experience has had many ups and downs that I have really learnt from and can now leave university with and, as a result of this, I am extremely proud of my final piece. I know I have worked on this harder than I have ever worked on a unit at university and feel as though this is the start of my path into the make up and hair industry and where I begin to make further improvements. If I had more time I would have liked to have developed my book further into a digital version as well as perhaps creating more concepts of superpowers using a wider age range of models to gain a wider target market interest. I also hope to re awake my make up artist website that I developed in the freelance and industry management unit by using the images created during this project to promote my work and to one day become a successful make up artist or designer.

Final Book Arrival!

Its finally arrived! All printed and bounded and the relief to finally have this in my hands is an amazing feeling. The three years of a lot of hard work has really paid off and I have gained so many skills, especially through this unit, that I never dreamed I would be able to do such a photography and editing. 

I think I completely under estimated the difficultly and challenge of creating a book would be. From having to research and rely on a certain high standard printing company, both on look and styles they would provide to the agonising wait of delivery time, to getting tests prints and designing the layout to choosing the texture and size of every element such as the front cover to paper. Its been a long and stressful process but one of the most rewarding and exciting experiences I have had to date and I am so proud of what I have achieved through this unit from creating the concept, in depth and primary researching, collaborating, designing, scheduling and organising, editing and creating the final outcome.

As my book has arrived a few days prior to the due day I have been really picky and over analytical of sections, such as if the spine of the book is too simple or if the editing is to a high enough standard, and the more I do the more I have been panicking as, with a book, its not something I can change last minute. I decided to show the final product to other students and also random people similar to my target market or who I do not know around university for a less biased opinion and this really helped to calm me down. I also need to remember that this is just the beginning of my professional journey and, considering I did not think I would be able to go to university, let alone get to this point, I am so proud of what I have achieved professional, academically and personally through this unit. I now feel ready to get into the real world and start my journey into the industry.  

I am so pleased with the 30cm square size of the book, it stands out and creates such as impacting statement when glanced at and matches the coffee table style layout I had envisaged from the start. The hardback semi gloss and semi matte effect I chose for the front cover has worked incredibly well to capture the whole ethos of the symbolic colour palette I created and subtly shines to give that professional finish to it as well as a smooth, soft texture when in my hands.

 Once opened the inking of the images has been refined with clarity as I specified many a time to the printers which was one of my most feared aspects as the images needed to be visually very clear and beautiful to capture the essence of the super power being conveyed in each chapter. I was very concerned that the images would be of low resolutions as I did have issues with the software that the printing company supplied but solved this issue as I liaised with the company frequently to understand the software more and got advice from my photographer and a few peers using the same software. I am so pleased with the choice of proline pearl photo paper as the shine brightens the image to life and gives all the hard work I've done that final detailed finish that it needed. I wanted the book and pages to really shine to convey the 'Superaura' and glow of emotions that my viewers need to reawaken in their lives as that is a huge part of my concept. I hope that this style of book gives that welcoming feeling that my reader will want to touch and be touched by.

Each chapter turned out much better than I had expected, my favourite chapters have to be either 'Flight' or 'Immortality'. I feel that 'Flight' captures the super aura of flying through every aspect very strongly from lighting that I had researched in my proposal, the dramatic make up and hair, strong pose and striking styling. Although 'Immortality' for me, is the one that conveys the most beauty and elegance and my skills as a make up and hair designer. It captures the colour symbolic meaning of gold that I throughly researched and the final outcome conveys the strong, regal immortal like status I hoped for. 

I am so happy with the exposure, saturation and the hues of the colours in each concept from the symbolic colour that introduces each chapter to the final images. At first I was worried that I hadn't spread many images over the space of two pages but this was a great decision not too as this is not a flat lay book and parts of the images would have been lost in the crease. 

Although I was initially over thinking the spine of the book, when placed amongst others and pulled out I love the sudden unexpected design that you see. When a viewer pulls the book out they may expect something simple and bland but the further it comes out the more interesting and dynamic the front cover can be seen. This will hopefully incise the viewer to take a closer look inside. I am also very happy with the extra photography images I took just to give it that real make up and beauty style to the book, to break up all the portrait images a little and also show another skill that I have gained over my time at university. 

Overall, I am delighted with the final outcome of my book. I am aware there are aspects that I now really want to work on to improve my skills further for the future such as returning to Elstree studios where I completed my work based learning hours to received more special effects training and also taking photoshop and Indesign lessons from my photographer where I could elaborate these images further. 

My final major project has challenged me both creatively and mentally. It has given me huge opportunities such as developing being a make up and hair artist, a creative director, a photographer, a editor, fashion stylist and a model scout that I would not have been able to do anywhere else at such an early stage in my journey. 

This book has pushed me so far out of my comfort zone at times and in doing so made me a more confident person that needs to believe in herself more just like the underlining messages I hope to give to the viewers. It has boosted my passion and love for this industry that I hope to keep with me wherever the path may take me.