The document is a production diary for a children's book project. Over several weeks, the diary details the planning and research process. In week 1, the author struggled with the proposal but hoped to learn more over time. Research in weeks 2-3 taught the author about children's book styles and presentations. In week 4, the author identified potential problems like computer issues and looked at printing options. Week 5 involved further problem-solving. Week 6 was spent planning nursery rhymes and pages. By week 7, planning was largely complete ahead of production starting in week 8. The diary shows the progression from early challenges to feeling prepared for the production phase.

1. Production Diary
Leah Ellis

2. Week 1
I feel that writing the proposal was quite difficult as there was a lot to try to think about
and seems as I have only just decided properly how to go about this project and deciding
what I would like to do for this, I feel that I was not completely prepared for what was to
come in this intense proposal and initial research stage. I also slightly feel that I would have
been better to have had the idea for a little longer, so that I could have already expanded
on it as much as I feel some others around me have.
As for if I may have enough knowledge or not to proceed with this project, for right now, I
am not completely sure, but hope I will by the time I get to it, as I know that I often feel
unprepared before I start a task and yet manage to get into it relatively quickly.
I feel that I may need to do a little further research into the styles that they use for all the
different ages as I am looking at creating mine for a much younger audience.
I think I may have produced enough work for now on this section, once I complete what I
started, as I do need to complete my research on 1 of my illustrators. As I have done quite
a long PowerPoint on the 4 different people.
I feel I could improve this work by completing the research, and possibly I could go a little
more into the artist’s past as to why they became illustrators for these things, although I’m
also not completely sure as to how useful that would be.

3. Weeks 2 & 3
These 2 weeks were spend conducting research into our topics, including market, audience, and existing
product research.
So far, from my research I have learned a lot about how children’s books present nursery rhymes and the
wording in the books to ensure it is clear enough for the children to read. It has also helped me figure out how
to do the art style as I was thinking about doing it slightly more detailed but after some research decided it
would probably be better not to. I have figured out that it may be better to do simple designs, but also give
the children something to do with it other than reading, such as give them a challenge to count flower petals
or how many bees on a page.
I feel like I may need to research the specifics a little more of how they often present it with the words mixed
in with the images to make it as appealing as possible to the young children. I will also still need to look into
having it printed or published in some way that is affordable so that I could present it to others and get it out
into the world in some way.
I feel like I will take the style forward into my project, as many people seem to not outline their characters or
backgrounds as much as I would feel obliged to, although I really like their styles a lot and think it works well
with the audience. This fact may have altered how I will approach the project, seems as it has changed slightly
how I have been thinking about it all.
I don’t feel that there are too many problems that have been presented in this research, which I am happy
about as I would have not liked that as much seems as that can stress me out quite a bit.
I do feel that existing product research has helped me slightly more, as it gave me more inspiration and
knowledge of how I will be able to continue.

4. Week 4
This week we were doing problem solving, meaning identifying possible problems in production and ways to
get around them.
I have identified quite a lot of potential issues in my work, although I have also found that they have simple
enough ways to solve them that I should be able to work around them if they do ever happen. The biggest
cause of my issues would be the computer messing up and deleting my progress as it will all be desk work
seems as I don’t need models or cameras.
I do not think that there is much that I can do so far to solve any of my problems as computers are
unpredictable. I am however looking into the printing to ensure that I know how it would be when I go to print
it. This is involving looking at the prices and sizing of the prints.
The initial problem solving process has influenced my project as it is giving me information of the sizes of my
pages that I need to use and so how I need to have it sized and oriented. It has also given me ideas about when
I need to have it finished by in order to have it printed out and delivered to me for evaluation.
I would need to do some extra backups of my work to solve a lot of the possible problems. This is because
many of my problems are to do with the hard drives in the computer or external breaking. I will record my
solutions in my on the go evaluations as I go through my project, this will be where I write down all of my
problems and the solutions that I take to get through them.
I feel that I am often good at working under pressure, which would be good for when I have problems,
although I may not be with problems. I am not sure how I could improve this ability, but I will be working on the
problems as and when they arrive, and will be able to ask for help if I need to from those around me with more
knowledge of the situations that I am in.

5. Week 5
This week we were doing problem solving for our project.
The problem solving has gone well I feel, as I have solved the problem of knowing how the printing
will work out. For this, I was looking through different photobook publishers and looking to find their
prices and delivery times for different options. This was interesting as I have never looked at this sort
of thing before and so had no idea of the possible prices or times for it, leaving me pleasantly
surprised at how cheap it can be, and how fast. I feel like this was the biggest problem that I needed
to solve for this work.
I have learnt more about how I am to create my work, and more specifically, how to alter the text in
Photoshop and InDesign, as I had not had much experience in those areas.
I feel that I am ready to start my planning, as I feel that I have solved most of my problems that could
arise, due to me being mainly on a computer to complete it all instead of needing actors or models.
My website is mostly up to date, just needing to add the most recent aspects that I have completed
that I have not had time to complete yet.
My to do list at this point, is very small, as I have got the planning, production, evaluation, and
showing left to do and that’s all, as I feel that I am mostly up to date with a lot and keeping on top of
my work as I go along.

6. Week 6
This week has been spent beginning my planning.
I feel that planning has gone rather well so far this week, as I have gotten a solid start in my work, and feel that I
have been able to stay up to date with everything as I work.
I have made plans of which nursery rhymes it is that I wish to include in my work, and which versions of them it
is that I prefer to include.
I still need to work on layouts and the plans for the pages that I will produce, as I have not yet got a clear enough
idea of how it is that I wish for that to go.
I feel that I am good enough at planning as I like to go through a lot of the details and try to make sure that I
could easily do it step by step straight from the planning documents sometimes. Although I prefer to do this, I
still struggle with following the plans most of the time as I get carried away and use the plan simply as a baseline
instead of following it all as I go through.
I feel the bit of planning most difficult for me with be layouts and colour schemes as these are things that I know
I struggle to stick to once I have made them as it develops more and more as I work through.
I feel my website is mostly up to date, as I try to always keep it current, although there may be a couple more
updated areas missing due to connectivity problems.
My to-do list consists of layout plans, flat plans, and character design mostly. I can work through this during my
next week, as I will be able to do these mainly in a couple steps.

7. Week 7
This week we were doing our final week of planning before starting production.
My production starts on Monday, and I feel that I am quite well planned, as I have a lot of my ideas and plans
down and ready to work off of for when we come back after the weekend.
I feel that a lot has worked quite well in my planning, as I have been working hard and trying to do as much as I
can to complete all relevant areas. This may not have been the most easy thing to do solidly for a week, but I feel
I have been able to do it quite well and not lose too much concentration throughout.
I have still got one last day to work on flat plans, and see how the company I am printing through requires the
work to be sent through for it to be printed properly in the way that I wish.
I do have a production schedule, that I think may work, and I plan to stick to during my production by ensuring
that I will stop a page and move on once I have reached the allocated time for that one, this will ensure that I at
least manage to get all my pages done instead of leaving too much or any empty pages.
I plan to review my planning around once a week at minimum during my production, to ensure that I am still
following it and managing to complete the jobs required for each area that I complete.
I feel that nothing has gone too wrong because of the planning in the past, as it always seems to still be followed
a good amount, and has not inconvenienced or mislead me as far as I’m aware.
I hope that nothing goes wrong because of my planning currently being too poor, as I feel that my planning is
adequate and will only be able to make it go better rather than worse.
During the planning stages of this work, I have learned much more about printing books, photo or otherwise,
and much more about my style of drawing as I have had to create character and background designs consistently
and within my style for the entire time.

8. Week 8
This was the first week of production on our projects. I started by trying to create my
front cover for my book. I created this in the style of a handwriting page, that I thought
would interest the children, as they should be starting to learn to read and write in this
format, and so it would be a recognisable design, and would be simple to understand. I
started this by just planning to have the words in the correct way, but when discussing
this design choice with some others, they suggested trying to include a dotted version of
the word as well, as it often does in practice designs, so the children can trace the
letters. I really liked this idea and went to town trying it out in different ways until I
found a way that I liked it, which was to have the words on separate lines and fill the
rest of the page with the dotted words, which I like quite a lot.
After this, I needed to start creating my inside pages, which I thought would be better to
start on a single page, so Doctor Foster was my starter. I feel this went quite well as I
scanned in a design to go over in Photoshop, and then proceeded to try to decide colour
schemes. I feel that this went very well as I am happy with the product so far and others
seem to find it pleasing enough as well. Then came trying to add the wording, where I
encountered the problem of spelling. The word Gloucester has multiple spellings that
took me, and some others, a while to try to figure out which was correct – with or
without a “h”. After some time we settled on using the spelling from Google Maps,
which is without the “h”.

10. Week 9
This was our 2nd week of production, which enabled me to finish 3 full spreads and also start on my 4th.
I have now completed a double page spread of itsy bitsy spider, which I feel was a very strong illustration that I am
proud of completing as I feel it is the best page that I have done so far, with a comprehensive colour scheme and
good text spacing.
I have also completed my page for hickory dickory dock which came with a few problems that I did not foresee. One
of these problems was that as I was creating the layer mask in order to change the colours of the line art, it was
going transparent and only after a while a searching did I find the solution. I had apparently used a colour that was
not a true black like I thought I had used, so that meant it would be transparent, but luckily it was not too hard to
change this as I simply had to do a fill on all lines. Another problem that popped up was that I did not have the
correct amount of space for my text as I needed. This was a very annoying problem as it meant that I needed to
either change the size of my drawing and recolour it all or change the size of my text. I refused to change the size of
the text as it would have meant being inconsistent with sizing which I did not want. This lead to only one option, so
although I hated to do it, I had to take a few steps back through my work and add sections to my line art to increase
the sizing. This was definitely not ideal but once I found a solution to it I was a lot happier and, although not wanting
to complete the changes, reluctantly accepted defeat and altered my work to fit around it.
I have so far kept all my illustrations consistent in my eyes, as I have kept the cartoon style the same throughout all
the different pages. I have also worked to keep my pen sizing the same at 33 or 17 for finer details, and my font size
at 35 for ease of reading. I am feeling relatively proud of my work so far and know that I can continue it for a while
at least. I have been experiencing some personal problems in this week that has hindered my working for a while,
but I am trying to push through it to try to complete my work on time.
I do still have 6 rhymes to create pages for, only 1 of such being a single page covering. This may also allow me to
add an extra page spread once I am finished if I do have time, although I would prefer to make sure that the ones I
require are as good as can be before even thinking about adding extras.

12. Week 10
This production week was spent finishing Cock-a-doodle doo and
Humpty Dumpty, allowing me to start on row row row your boat. This
was quite hard to do as Photoshop was not allowing me to use
keyboard short cuts every so often which stops me from being able to
do work for a little while as I have yet to find a way around this
although I have tried, it is easier to just wait a couple moments and
then complete it as if it just needed a moment’s rest. I did eventually
find a quicker way around this problem, as there is a way to ‘paste in
place’ through Photoshop tabs. This solved a lot of my problems from
the week and made it back to be an easier time.

14. Week 11
This week was spent continuing my production. Mainly completing my
page on Mary, Mary quite contrary, Row, row, row your boat, and then
starting on Mary had a little lamb.
This was quite a week of achievement as I managed to complete a few
pages, I would say this is because they were slightly simpler in turns of
design, but also because I am more competent at knowing how much
space that I need for the wording, as I know that the type size takes up
a lot more space than I originally thought it would.

16. Week 12
This week we returned from half term and got straight back to work. This had me start
with creating Mary had a little lamb as I had only 3 left rhymes left to illustrate. I did
get some feedback from some of my peers this week on my work that is already
‘complete’ and they suggested that certain pages were a little empty and plain, helping
me to come up with that to do to finish this page, adding some flowers and a question
for the young reader to try to answer to help them with their maths skills. After taking
the break and looking back through the work I’ve made already, I am finding some
things that I do not like as much, which I am able to note down and will change once I
have finished all my pages if I have time to update them. This will be done in this way
as I feel it is more important to have my pages all complete rather than making little
alterations to some of the pages that currently work well enough to make me happy.
Later in the week, I started on It’s raining, it’s pouring. This leaves me with only 1
rhyme that I fully need to work on, after I finish this one, which I hope to do next week
to allow me 1 week after to alter and update my work.