The document provides guidance for evaluating a graphic narrative project. It instructs the reader to provide specific details about their work using both written and visual examples. They should find areas of their work to praise, being specific about what is good or what they are proud of. They should also find areas for improvement and specify what they would change if given the opportunity. The template suggests adding additional slides as needed and deleting any blank slides before submission.

1. Graphic Narrative
Evaluation

2. Use this template to help you evaluate your project.
You should give specific details about your work.
You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project.
You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are
good or why you are proud of them.
You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make
better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve.
Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here.
Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.

3. Does your final product reflect your
original intentions?
• Compared to my planning, flat plans and storyboards I feel like I have
followed what I set out to do from all my planning quite well as they all
look the same apart from the final product is more detailed. For instance
with page 2. On the left is my original intention for what I wanted the page
to look like and the one on the left is my digital final image.
• Something that I have changed from my planning though, for instance on
the digital flat plans I have stated how I want to have the text on the same
pages as my images.

4. But as you can see from all my pages I decided against this as I feel like the words didn’t
really fit on the page and that the pages looked better without the words on. So what I have
done is make it so that you have a page of text before each corresponding page. As you can
see on the image on the left it includes some text, but I think it doesn’t look as good as the
image on the right, where I have produced it so that the text is on a page on its own before
the image page. I feel this works as the image page is not crammed full and the page which I
have included the text on isn't either.
• I feel like I have followed the rest of my planning quite well too, as the text which I satetd I was going to
use I have used and it looks quite good and fitting in my book I think, as it has quite a classic feel.
Something else that I feel I have followed quite well and represented in my work is what I have said on
my mind map as I have followed this the best I could and tried to develop on it in my work. I feel that the
mood boards were represented too in the character of my loaf of bread as all of my inspiration is on
there.
• Thinking with a professional context I feel that this method would work quite well as it is often used in
story books, have all the words on a page before the illustrations, such as Hairy Maclary and Zarchary
Quack, a childrens book by Lynley Dodd.

5. How well have you constructed your
images?
• In my work I feel like I have constructed my images quite well as I have
stuck with quite a simplistic style and they fit in quite well in amongst their
surroundings.
• What I have used most to create my characters is roto-scoping from
inspiration of things that I found on the internet, when constructing my
characters I did not copy exactly off the internet, I made changes which
made the characters my own, and the loaf of bread is completely original.
I feel like my loaf of bread character was one of my best created. On the
left is a piece of inspiration for my character and on the right is my actual
character.

6. • In my work I trued to use the shape task a but more, I tried to use it at first for my loaf of
bread man and then again for the duck. I found this didn’t really work for creating my loaf of
bread man but worked quite well when creating my duck, but I also used a bit of rotoscoping
to add more detail to the duck such as its tail feathers. I feel like the shapes worked best for
creating the greenery on the trees. I feel like when I created images using the shape task
before in my first power point it worked quite well and was good for creating simplistic
animals. On the left is an example of when I used the shape task to create a little mole.
And as you can see on the right the
rotoscoping task which I did worked much
better than the shape task and created a
much more detailed in depth picture. I
proffered this technique when creating my
characters as when using rotoscoping it
means that you are not stuck to certain
shapes and having to warp them,
rotoscoping means that you can create the
shapes you want straight off and make it as
detailed as you want.
When referring to a professional context I feel like my work I created for my story could
fit in in an actual children's book a it is quite simple and colorful and I feel would quite
appeal to children. If you think about cartoons called the Simpsons also the images in
that are very simple and usually all block colour, much like the colours in my work, this
shows that simple can often be quite effective.

7. How well have you used text to anchor
your images
• In my book I have used text to anchor my images into the story. As I have stated
before my original intentions have changed from the beginning, But it did not look
good. So what I have done instead is put a page of text before the page it is in
relation to. My reasoning for doing this is because then that way you are not just
looking at a page full of illustration with no context. The way have have made it is
now it tells you what I going on in the page before you see it, so it paints a picture
of what you are about to see before you see it and gives the images a context.
• In my text pages I do not believe that there is too much text on the pages for the
children to manage, as it is quite a repetitive story and once you have managed
the first longer bit of text you should be able to manage the rest of the pages.
• In my text I have tried not to use language which is too advanced for children and
make it as east to read as possible while still developing their vocabulary. The
words which I have used in my text pages really help to demonstrate what is
happening on the illustration pages, they help you figure out what the animals
may sound like when they talk as it says “tweeted the bird” or “barked the dog”.

8. Is your product suitable for your
audience?
• When I was planning my story book in my proposal I stated that I had a target audience of 3-
5, I think I have represented this audience quite well, as I have included some bright colours
and produced an easy to read book, with fonts that aid with the reading of words, as it is a
serif font, this helps whoever is reading read it better as the flicks act as leading lines to the
next letter. I have made it so the story is quite simple and not put too big words in out of the
children's vocabulary. Below are examples of the bright colours on the page and the serif
fonts.
• Something else which I have done to cater to my audience is make all of the characters very smiley and look quite
nice, this makes it so that the characters (even the bad ones) do not scare the audience.
• I also feel like this book works well to teach a story, it shows how yes you should explore the world around you but
it is always good to be sheltered and have the security of a home. This is shown by the fact that the loaf of bread
gets sad and wants to go home.
• My product is also aimed at English speaking countries, I have catered to this by producing my book in English so
that people can actually read it.
• In respect to professional contexts I think that my book would be suitable for the same audiences as the same
children's books such as What the Ladybird Heard, as I feel like people that liked that book would like my book as I
feel that they are both on the same sort of level.

9. What do you like/dislike about the
techniques you have used?
• A technique to create the characters and some of the surroundings that I
liked is rotoscoping, the reason that I like this is because you can produce
the exact shape that you want and don’t have to merge to shapes together
or something like that. I feel that rotoscoping, using the colour range tool
and then the shape task worked really well for creating trees, as the
shapes looked really good as the top of the tree. Below is an example.
Another task that I liked using for the backgrounds was
the cut out filter, and once I had the cut out done I
would go over it with the polygonal lasso tool. This made
it so that my backgrounds were not just copied on the
internet with next to no effort in, it made them original.
• In reflection to a professional context I feel like using the polygonal lasso tool to
rotoscope images creates images in a more professional standard with more detail for
example in the book What The Lady Bird Heard. See next slide for an explanation.

10. • As you can see in my work they look quite similar to some of the characters in this book, as
in this book a lot of the characters are made of block colours with quite hard lines, which
you can create if you wish to work in that style using rotoscoping. On the left is an example
from What The Lady Bird Heard on on the right is an exaple of a character from my book
which was created using the polygonal lasso tool. As you can see it gives it a very cartoony
style which I feel represents the art that you would see in a lot of story books.

11. What do you like/dislike about how
your final product looks?
• Something that I like about the way my final product looks is the fact that
all the way through I feel I have kept in in the same style with the same
sort of colour scheme with a lot of greens and natural colours which you
would see in the outside world.
• Something else I like about the colours in the book is the fact that even
though I have kept it quite natural I think I have made the colours quite
bright, which would appeal to children in the age range of 3-5 which I have
stated in my proposal as children of this age are drawn to bright colours.
For instance as you can see below it all looks like quite a natural
environment with a bright blue sky and some nice bright greens in the
tree. Although some aspects of it are not too bright a lot of it is.

12. • Something else that I like about my finial product is the characters that I have included,
they all look very happy and nice, even the characters that want to eat the bread and come
off as a little bit bad. I like this as it should appeal to the children and not scare them and
make it so that all of the characters are likable. Here are some examples of my characters
below. As you can see they all look very happy and nice, this may work towards calming a
child.
•Thinking about this in a professional context I feel like this reflects the conventions of
already existing story books such as The Bad Tempered Lady Bird, as in this book all the
characters look really nice and happy and are quite colorful, as you can see below.

13. • Something that I dislike about the way my final product looks is possibly so aspects of it
could have a bit more going on in the page such as page 6 where the loaf of bread man is
stood on his own looking unhappy there isn't really too much going on in the page. As you
can see below. I think a way that I could combat this is possibly having some birds flying
about and in reference to the rest of the book a way that I could make it look as if more was
going on in the page and to make it more colorful could be to add things such as small
flowers dotted about.
• Something else I dislike about my book is the level of simplicity in it. I feel if I had more time
I would be able to add a lot more detail and make it look a lot more professional.

14. Why did you include the content you
used?
• A reason that I used the content which I did was because I wanted to create something
that was a little bit different from the story books that were out there and I did not
want to just copy a story exactly. The reasoning for my bread character is because it was
based on the story the ginger bread man, so I took inspiration from the bread bit in the
name of the story.
• Another reasoning behind some of content which I included on my book is things such
as the bread maker where the bread emerges from. I wanted to give the gingerbread
man more of a modern twist, by including aspects of modern technology such as a
bread maker and an electric kettle, which would not have been featured in the original
story. As you can see below from the kitchen counter.
• A reason for the characters which I included such as the bad characters (duck and bird)
is because these animals have connotations to liking to eat bread, so I though that
these should be portrayed as the people that want to eat him.

15. • A reason that I used the text that I did is because I feel that it represents aspects of
professional work, as usually in storybooks you will see fonts that are quite simple in serif
with little flicks on the end of the words, this is one reason I have done this. Another reason I
have included this font is because it makes it easier for children to read as the little flicks on
the end of the letters work as little leading lines to the next letter. For instance if you look
below are some examples, the example on the left is from my book and the examples on the
right are examples from already existing story books. One example is from The Family
Disciple and the other is from The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

16. What signs, symbols or codes have
your used in your work?
• In my work I believe that I have used a few signs, symbols or codes. For instance
there are a few signs and symbols in the kitchen which could suggest a lot of
things.
• For instance in this kitchen you can see that A lot of the items in it are modern,
such as the bread maker and the kettle. This could suggest that the time the book
is set is present day.
• The fact that whoever is making the bread is having to do it in the bread maker
could also show that the may live quite a busy life and have to go to work, so they
have left the bread being made at home. This gives you some insight into the
characters which you don’t even properly see.

17. • Some more signs and symbols that are in my book is that I have given my loaf of bread
character quite muscley arms, this on its own has connotations to it being a man and men are
seen as the gender which tend to have more muscle and are stronger.
• Another sign which hints towards my character being a male is the fact that the bread
character has blue shoes on, and the colour blue is typically linked to males, such as the colour
pink is typically linked to females, if I had given my loaf of bread character pink shoes this may
have hinted towards it being a female. As you can see below my loaf of bread character.

18. What representations can be found in
your work?
• In my book the only character I have really assigned a gender to is the loaf of bread
character. A way that I have represented the male gender in my book, as the only
distinct male character in my book is a the loaf of bread. I have represented him in quite
a stereotypical way by giving him quite muscley arms and a pair of blue shoes, this is
something that you could associate with the male gender.
• A way that this gender has then been represented is with the urn for adventure and
quite athletic, being able to run away from anything. Another way that the male gender
has been represented is it is shown in my book to be quite confident in what they do, as
they go out wanting to explore and state to everyone that that they know that as fast as
they run they wont be able to catch him.
• There are no other specific genders in my work, but if you were to assume that the
hand pushing a button on the bread maker was a woman, which is what I intended but
it is not clearly shown in my book. So if the person making the bread is a female then
they are being stereotypically portrayed as the person in the house which makes the
food for everyone else, which reflects old connotations of a house wife who stays at
home and makes all the food for the rest of the family while the male is out making
money. But as this person is making a bread maker it shows they may be busy during
they day as they do not have the time to hand make it, this shows they may be out at
work, but it could also suggest that they may be in cleaning the house which represents
the stereotypical view of a house wife.

19. • In my story I believe the animal species that is the bird is represented in quite a
stereotypical way, as these seem to be the only characters that want to eat the bread. This
reflects real life as when you may be out by a pond stereotypically you would feed birds and
ducks bread.
• I think the dog is represented in a really good way and in the same way that they are
represented in the real world as “mans best friend”. As the dog is there when the male
character needs it most to get home.
• Something else in my book that is represented is the typical English country side, the house
seems to be out on its own in amongst a lot of greenery and hills and ponds, which I feel
stereotypically reinforces the representation of the English countryside as this is what it
always appears to be in TV and Film and in some books.
• I think my book reflects certain representations that are in already existing story books that
are out now, for instance in my book there are a lot of genders which are not made distinctly
made clear which is the same for a children's story book by Lynley Dodd called Hairy Maclary.
This book is about a group of dogs which are all represented to have a gender in the way that
they look but it is not specifically made clear what gender they are.

20. What style have you employed in your
products?
• I think that my book employs quite a simplistic style, my reasoning for this is
because I feel that if you make something simplistic and keep it very simplistic all
the way through then it can have quite a good effect as not everything needs to be
massively detailed, especially in a children's book as they are not usually looking
for detail it is more colour and the characters. As you can see below a few
examples show that my book follows the simplistic style all the way through with a
lot of block colours and not a vast amount of realistic detail.

21. • Something which I feel has influenced my book is other existing professional products
which posses quite a simplistic style, such as cartoons that exist like The Simpsons and
Family Guy. As in these cartoons there are a lot of block colours and they posses an
element of simplicity, obviously in these products it is not over simplified as they are very
professional but they do have that aspect of simplicity to them. Fro instance the dog
character in my book was heavily based on Santa's Little Helper, the dog from The
Simpsons. As you can see below I have included some pictures from The Simpsons and
Family guy which represents its art style. As you can see there is very minimal shading and
everything in these cartoons which is quite similar to mine.

22. What were the strengths and weaknesses
of the pre-production and planning
• I feel like planning and research in the pre-production of my book helped me a lot by helping me to create a
picture of what I wanted my book to look like in my head. I feel like a big strength of my pre-production was the
mood boards as they really aided me in the style that I wanted to go for and pointed me in the right direction of
what I wanted my book to look like, they helped me to work out the sort of colours that I wanted in my book. I feel
like I followed these mood boards quite well.
• Something else that I feel like was a big strength in my planning was my mind maps, as they helped me to find out
existing conventions of children's story books such as the text layout and the way that they look and what they
included. Something else I feel helped with this was my children's story book research as it was an in depth look at
the professional children's story books and it helped me to understand what I needed to include for it to be
successful, I found that it should include a lot of bright colours and interesting happy characters.

23. • I think a strength of my pre- production was when we were experimenting with the shape
tasks and rotoscoping as it gave me a feel for what would be good and what would be bad in
my book. I feel like a big strength of mine was the rotoscoping as I really enjoyed it and the
finished products were quite good. It showed me that rotoscoping would be a good way of
illustrating my book. Below are some examples of my rotoscope work.
• I feel that a weakness of my pre-production was my digital flat plans and I feel they could
have included a lot more detail, but I still feel like they did help me as it gave me an idea of
the lay out of my book. I later found that the layout on the flat plans what not what I wanted
to do as the text didn’t really look right on the same page as all of the illustrations. Below is
an example of my flat plans. I feel like I could possibly have included colour to see what
worked well on the page and what didn’t.

24. Historical and cultural context
• My work is heavily based on the book The Ginger Bread Man, it is pretty much the
same story with very few minor adjustments, such as changing it so that it is a loaf of
bread instead of a ginger bread man. In the fact it is the same story and set in the
same sort of area it strongly compares to the original ginger bread man story which
was an old folk tale which was first printed in America in 1875.
• Culturally it has a context of being out in the countryside, places where there are
rivers and things as in the original tale he had to cross a river on a fox’s nose. As it was
printed in America I do not know what the countryside is like out there but I have tried
to produce something that looks like the English countryside as to fit in the same
context of the story.
•The book of the Ginger Bread Man has not explicitly been made into a film but has
made appearances in things such as Shrek. This shows just how big this folk tale has
become as it is something that pretty much everybody knows as the story has been
passed down through the generations.

25. Peer Feedback
• Summarise peer feedback and discuss
– Responses you agree with
– Responses you disagree with