Presentation - After

I enjoyed the presentation. There was a deathly silence when we we setting-up and it took a little longer than we'd hoped for but when we got started everything went as well as we had expected. I didn't mess up my speech despite doing so many times during practices, Laura was nice and friendly but was also honest and fair with her opinions on what we had produced. We should have 'broken the ice' and said hello to our audience, shook hands, etc.

She commented on the packaging saying she really liked the book idea; the dust jacket, bookmark ribbon and the image in the middle and she really liked our logo but she thought the pages with the song lyrics on we too whimsical for her - too fairy tale. she said she wanted it darker. I was quite annoyed at the Hive guy whose first words were in response to this saying they were 'cliched'. He then went on to talk about the Radiohead album Kid A saying we should have looked at that for a book idea and I explained we had looked at the Amnesiac album with its book style.

Ian Mitchell commented on our decision on the layout of the lyrics pages. He thought it felt forced and wasn't too keen on our intentions. For me the lyric pages were an experimentation after briefly looking at and being inspired by Vaughan Oliver's works. Ian was fair and made some really good points that I've taken on board. He also didn't like the chosen font Edwardian Script. This was interesting as we had feedback from other tutors and they liked the choice (I think they may have actually had a hand in the choice). I didn't want to start pointing fingers of complaining as it was ultimately our decision to use the font and I know that the tutors have very different opinions of such things. I recall in first year Ian really liked something I had done for a project but than another tutor came along and said they didn't like it at all. As I value the opinions and input from both tutors I am trying to find and develop a style that perhaps will touch on some middle ground.

Mike asked us questions about the decision not to make packaging for a vinyl. I told him that we thought a vinyl was 'too big' to which he gave me the answer a 'little voice' which I couldn't have said better myself! I had to think on the spot at this point as I too did want vinyl as our format but it was overall voted against within the group. I do recall tutors telling us that we needed to be realistic in our ideas and approach and not go too OTT with the packaging as in the real world an album like Laura Grove's wouldn't have massive expense spent on the packaging (unless they did some limited editions?) With our packaging I think it would be reasonable cost to reproduce.

There were 2 comments made by the Hive guy, Laura and also the tutors that stuck in my mind and still bug me now. They wanted to see it as a vinyl and for our book to be more bookish. I also wanted these two things. But unfortunately I wasn't able to sell this idea to the whole group which is a real shame. I do recall there were times where members of the group wanted our packaging to be less bookish and there was a point where the dust jacket was almost thrown out. Thankfully, this didn't happen.

Unfortunately, the lyrics pages did take a beating and this is down to me. For me, it was an experiment and trying something I wouldn't usually do but ultimately it was, I'd say 100%, successful.