The document provides guidance for evaluating a graphic narrative project. It includes prompts to evaluate how well the final product reflects the original intentions, how images are constructed, how text is used to anchor images, whether the product is suitable for the intended audience, techniques used, representations in the work, symbols and codes, and the overall style employed. The creator provides detailed responses analyzing their graphic narrative based on the prompts. They discuss their creative process, design choices, strengths and weaknesses of the final product.

1. GRAPHIC NARRATIVE
EVALUATION
By Lewis William Hill

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.Comic Sans MS

3. DOES YOUR FINAL PRODUCT REFLECT
YOUR ORIGINAL INTENTIONS?
• (Compare your planning/digital flat plans/storyboards to your final
product?)
• My finished product is quite different from my planning as when I was
creating my pages I added more detail and ideas to them that weren’t
originally on my plan. For example, I separated a page into two which
created a better plot and made it so that the reader knows how Perry
and Patty escape the pirate ship.
• My flat plans are very similar to my final product as they contain the
same characters throughout, and the story doesn’t go off track and
always stays with main storyline. Another similarity between my flat
plans and my finished product is that they both keep to the same style
of quite a cartoony look but with some slight shading and real life
locations.

4. • Contrastingly, my final product has many changes done to the
script as I have changed what some of it says, and altered it so
that it looks and sounds better to fit to the story and what details
are on the page.
• The big companies like Penguin Books would not have any
differences from the flat plans and planning to their final product,
as they know what they are doing and want the final product to
look professional and top quality. So they would alter they plans
to make it exactly the same to their final product.

5. HOW WELL HAVE YOU CONSTRUCTED
YOUR IMAGES?
• (How well have you constructed your images? You could talk about
the overall visual appearance as well as the use of texture and
colour.)
• To construct my pages I used Photoshop and the tools provided on
it, to create all my assets, backgrounds and text. For my
backgrounds I wanted them all to be bright and like its day time,
because in the Arctic day time lasts 6 months and night time lasts
the other 6 months. So I wanted to give the young readers the full
experience of being in the Arctic. Additionally, I added cracks to the
ground so the reader knows how rustic and dangerous the Arctic
is, at any moment the ice could break. This also gives the older
readers symbolism of the ice caps melting and reminds them that
its real and that it will affect their child's future.

6.  They style of my book is quite simple with some extra detail,
like shading and shadows to make the cartoon style of my
pages look more smooth and a not an eyesore to look at. My
character models also received this shading to make them
seem more memorable so the children like them more and so
they will buy the next book.
 The text in my book was created using the ‘Text’ tool on
Photoshop, I kept with the same font throughout my book
(marker felt) when it was just the narrating text. I changed the
font depending on what it was about, if a character was talking
then I used Comic Sans, and for the “Wham” I used
Badaboom. I feel that this makes my book look more comic
book like and more enjoyable to read as it has a variation
within the pages. The position of the text varies between the
pages, sometimes it was angled and on the mountains,
whereas on other pages it is simply just at the bottom.

7. HOW WELL HAVE YOU USED TEXT TO
ANCHOR YOUR IMAGES
• (You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.)
• On the first page of my book the starting sentence is placed onto a scroll like text box, because
right from the start the reader knows that it is based on a fairy tail and due to the fact the opening
words are “Once upon a time”. The rest of the text on this page is place on floating ice on the sea.

8.  My least favourite page of text is page eleven, when Patty and Perry attempt
to escape the ship. The text is placed on the floor of the room, which is a bit
awkward to read as it doesn’t contrast well with the wooden floor boards. It
also doesn’t fit with my style which makes me like it less.

9. • Another good example to well placed text is on page six, this is when Geoff the
walrus tells Perry where the pirate ship is. I placed the text on the walls either
side, and then positioned them above the cracks in the wall to make them stand
out more on the page.

10. IS YOUR PRODUCT SUITABLE FOR YOUR
AUDIENCE?
• (Reference your proposal.)
• (Give an audience profile and describe suitability in reference to content.)
• The target audience that I decided to aim for was children aged between 5
and 8 years old. This was due to the rivalry I created between the main
protagonist and the bad guy, I knew that it would contain some slight
violence (a penguin slapping a polar bear). So I raised my age range up
from 4-7 year olds to 5-8 year olds.
• At first I decided to aim for 4-7 year olds because I thought that the
younger audience would be able to learn from this book with all the text
and images. Whereas the slightly older audience would like to read it and
enjoy the action that I have placed into my book and also learn the morals
of being physically small but over coming your enemies and beating them,
even though they are much bigger and strong then you.
• I believe that my book is suitable for all ages because it may contain some
slight violence but it still has some niceties, like the friendship between the
good characters and also the walking away scene at the end of the book.

11. WHAT DO YOU LIKE/DISLIKE ABOUT THE
TECHNIQUES YOU HAVE USED?
• (Reference specific tools you used with images.)
• To start with the main tool I used was the ‘Custom Shape Tool’
which allows the user to select a shape from the selection and
then create that shape onto the canvas.
• I used this for most of my characters, then to manipulate that
chosen shape I used the ‘Free Transform Tool’ (Ctrl-L) or you can
select it in the ‘Edit’ tab. Then this gives you multiple ways to
manipulate that shape, Scale, Rotate, Perspective and Warp.
Selecting these will give you more control over the manipulation of
your shape.
• The ‘Free Transform Tool’ has to be my favourite one because it
can be so fun just to mess around with shapes till you get them
perfect. You can change them in a whole manor of ways, but the
best one to use in my opinion is the ‘Distort’ because you can
either make the shape longer, smaller but then you can also
change how slanted it is or make one side bigger then the other.
/ Warp /

12.  Another great tool that I used was the ‘Paint Bucket Tool’ which
allows the user to fill in any area of a similar colour with the
selected colour of your choice.
 To get the selected colour you need to use the ‘eyedropper
Tool’ which you then can use to select any colour on the
screen. If the colour is not on the screen then you can click the
‘Set Colour Tool’ in the top right of the screen. To bring up a
pop up menu of every colour there is and then you can change
the hue, saturation and brightness of the colour.

13.  One of my least favourite tools to use on Photoshop is the
‘Polygonal Lasso Tool’ this tool helps you select a certain area.
The aspect of this tool that I don’t like is that you have to select
each individual point around what you want to select. For
example, if you wanted to select your face in a photo then you
would have to click around your head on every point. This can
be resolved by using the ‘Magnetic Lasso Tool’ which
automatically selects the points, but even this can be buggy
and select an unwanted part of the image.
The line surrounding the car is what I have selected, they both have their errors. The Lasso tool
(Left) is very clunky and you have to be very priciest to use it. Similarly, with the Magnetic Lasso
tool (Right) then you have to be very careful not to go over the edge of what your selecting
otherwise it will go wrong. Both of these images show them going wrong.

14.  A tool that I did not use but is very handy for those moments
where something in an image doesn’t look right and not
natural, is the ‘Spot Healing Brush’.
 This tool is great if you take a photo of yourself and there is a
blemish on your face, you can easily get rid of it by using this
tool. What this brush does is copies the area around the
selected spot that you chose on your face, then it replaces that
spot with what the surrounding area looks like.

15. WHAT DO YOU LIKE/DISLIKE ABOUT HOW
YOUR FINAL PRODUCT LOOKS?
• Likes:
• What I most like about my book is the style of it, because it is quite cartoon
like yet I have added shading which gives it more of a realistic look to the
background and the setting of each page.
• Another strength to book is how long it is compared to its rivals, it being a
shorter book means that it is easier to read for the children and it doesn’t
get boring.
• Finally, one of my favourite features of my book is that my characters look
very detailed and you know who and what they are by just looking at them.
The detail I added to them is little things, like a bow, backpacks, clothes
and even an eye patch.

16. • Dislikes:
• In my opinion, what brings my book down is my story I think if I had more
time on it then I could get the story polished out and make more sense.
The story is just a bit too quick and you really have to use you
imagination to create it in your mind.
• Another dislike I have with my book is that penguins don’t actually live in
the arctic, they are only found in the Antarctic and southern parts of the
world, like South Africa. If I were to change anything it would be that it is
set in the Antarctic.
• Finally, the last thing I don’t like about my project is Captain Claws design
as I think it is too big compared to my penguins design and it looks like
he ha small legs to hold up a giant body.

17. WHY DID YOU INCLUDE THE CONTENT YOU
USED?
• (Images, fonts, effects, colours)
• The main font that I used in my project was ‘Marker Felt’ as it had a
cartoon look and fitted well with my style and theme of the book. I tried
to use other fonts that were similar to this (like ‘Chalk duster’) but this
made it look too rough. Whereas ‘Marker Felt’ made my book feel more
suitable for children to read as they could clearly see each individual
letter. For the characters talking I changed the font to ‘Comic Sans MS’
which is easy to read and makes my book feel more like a comic book
so younger children will be more interested in it.

18.  The colours that I used in my project were all very bright to give the
feeling that the reader is in a very light but cold landscape in the
Arctic. I use colours like blue and white with the odd grey crack in the
Arctic floor, to show that it is a dangerous place to be. I found out
what colours to use by my research and picking the most common
colours that kept occurring. The sea I put as dark blue to give a
contrast to the rest of the colours on the page, because it being a
darker colour makes it stand out so the children know its not land.
 The effects that I have added to my backgrounds, characters and
assets are all to make it seem more realistic or easy on the eye, it
makes it something that you want to look at. For example, adding an
inner shadow to an iceberg makes it more three dimensional like its
actually there.
Inner Shadow

19. WHAT SIGNS, SYMBOLS OR CODES HAVE
YOUR USED IN YOUR WORK?
• (Choices of colour, style, locations, character design and tone all give
additional meaning to your work.)
• My book is not discriminative in any way because I have not added any
mentions of different religions, races or any other ethical groups. There
are advantages and disadvantages to mentioning any ethical groups,
for example an advantage is that it won’t offend anyone by not
mentioning it. But a disadvantage of this is the children not learning
about other ethical origins. Even though I haven't placed any
references in my project I still think it is important to learn about the
world and that children need to know the right morals and not learn the
wrong ones, like bullying and other issues.
• Whereas in other books symbolism is shown more through religion and
belief. For example, crosses for Christianity or the star of David for
Judaism. I did not include any of this in my book due to the fact it may
be seen as offensive or pretentious.

20. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
Media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to
be able to interpret them.
At a basic level, this could mean being able to read the language that a
magazine is written in.
At a deeper level, it means being able to interpret signs and symbols that
we use a visual shorthand to communicate ideas.
We recognise these signs in our own culture but find it harder to
understand when looking at others.
We create and attach meaning to signs and symbols in many different
forms.
Creative Media Production 2012 20

21. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
What is this?
This is a Norwegian Pine tree, covered in
snow and with a red ribbon on.
Our cultural understanding allows us to
interpret its meaning.
To us, in British society, it means
Christmas, presents and family.
This is because we share a cultural
knowledge.
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21

22. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
There are many other signs and symbols
that we attach meaning to.
A leather jacket can imply rebellion.
A sports car can imply wealth and power.
A cross can represent religion.
Creative Media Production 2012 22

23. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
Visual representations of everyday objects are often the same all over the
world. A car appears as a car, no matter what country it appears in.
What that car means however, can be very different depending on your
cultural background.
Creative Media Production 2016
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24.  Symbolism that I have included in my book are pirates,
through the polar bears design. Pirates are usually seen
as the bad guys in films and generally the media.
 Another stereotype I have included is the hero, Perry Pan
the Penguin. Hero's in the media are either seen as
strong people with some kind of power or they are the
underdog and beat the big bad guy. Finally, I have
included a damsel in destress, just like in old fairy tails.
This is Patty the Penguin, who is put under some kind of
sleeping curse and the hero has to save her from the evil
polar bear.

25. WHAT REPRESENTATIONS CAN BE FOUND
IN YOUR WORK?
• (How are men, women or children shown in your work? Does your work
feature different ages, races, social groups or religions? Does a lack of any
variety of character types create its own representation?)
• My story contains classic fairy tail stereotypes, the hero, the villain and the
damsel in destress who is always saved by the hero and the villain is
defeated by the hero.
• The hero in my book is male and so is the villain. Whereas the damsel in
destress is a female character, this could be seen as quite sexist but I don’t
think it does because it is the classic stereotype for an old story. Which I
have just manipulated and changed the characters who were suppose to
be human into animals. There are no children in my story, just penguins, a
polar bear and a walrus. But you don’t know how old they are so in a
child's mind they could be a young age, whereas an adult might see them
as adults.
• Oddly, my book consists of a variety of different characters which creates
its own representation of corruption, where the big powerful polar bear gets
defeated by the underdog.

26. WHAT STYLE HAVE YOU EMPLOYED IN
YOUR PRODUCTS?
• (Discuss influences/ existing products)
• (What visual style does your work have and why did you choose it?)
• Throughout the whole of my project I used the same cartoonist style, of
just using the shapes provided in Photoshop, using custom shape tool
for example. To this simple style I then added shading, like inner
shadows and drop shadows to give it a pop out effect, effectively like it
was three dimensional.
• The style of my book is not influenced by any other books or style of
illustrators, it was all created by me and using my ideas and I think I
have achieved the style that I wanted, this also adds a unique quirk to
my entire project.
• On the pages where the sea can be seen I also added an additional
effect of a reflection in the sea. I got this by duplicating the layer I
wanted to have a reflection, e.g. the ship. Then I flipped the duplicated
layer and placed it under the other layer and brought down its opacity
to look like a reflection.

27. WHAT WERE THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE
PRE-PRODUCTION AND PLANNING?
• (How did the planning and research help.)
• (How well did you manage your time.)
• (Reference specific examples.)
• To start the research off I looked into other books that were of a similar
category as mine. The books I chose were, Where the Wild Things Are,
Where There’s a Bear, There’s Trouble and finally The Selfish Crocodile,
these books were very similar to mine. Researching these books really
helped me narrow down on what I wanted to achieve with my book, like
what size pages I wanted 26cm by 24cm. This was the average size page
of the books that I researched. They also taught me that the book also
needed a moral and a good ending.
• The next stage of planning consisted of me creating a mind map of ideas
that I wanted to do, this took me not long because I knew I wanted to do a
Peter Pan story but with a twist. So me wanting to do that narrowed it
down, but it was to choose the characters and who was going to star in my
book. I thought of penguins fighting an angry polar bear, who replaced
Captain Hook, the penguins replaced Peter and Wendy.
• To complete the planning it took me a good few hours because it took me a
while to research the books and then think of fresh new ideas that had not
been done before.

28. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL
CONTEXT
• (How does your work compare to what has come before? What other
similar products have existed in the past? What current products
exist?)
• The main story of my book is based on two great historical fairy tails,
Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty but I have combined them and added
a major twist, which is that the main characters are animals. This is the
part where it is similar to something that has been done in the past.
Everything else that I have created is brand new and I came up with in
my head.
• A similar product to my book is possibly, Pingu, because that is a TV
show which is based on a Penguins life and he goes adventuring in the
snowy wasteland with his sister.

29. PEER FEEDBACK
• (Summarise peer feedback and discuss.)
• (Responses you agree with.)
• (Responses you disagree with.)
• The feedback I got from my fellow students was very helpful as it was
constructive criticism, the main problem I had was getting the polar bear’s
arms right because they looked spindly. They were the thing that took me
the longest time, I eventually got feedback from a student who pointed me
in the right the direction for creating the polar bear’s arms, the arms turned
out buff.
• Other students commented on my text placement and font choice, for
example someone said that ‘Big Caslon’ was too hard to read so they
suggested ‘Comic Sans MS’ which I thought was a good idea. I used it on
the speech bubbles when a character talks and I feel like it was the right
decision. Another example would be when I placed my text on the base of
the ship, it looked off and didn't’t fit there. Another person suggested putting
it on the wooden planks and it worked a lot better.
• Finally more good feedback I got was for the reflections in the sea I thought
they looked messy and made the page look more complex. But the people I
asked liked them and said I should keep them in it because it makes it look
dynamic, so I did.