Oscar Bown

To recap, my project is a book about my (mostly Mario) Nintendo collection. I like collecting video game merchandise that ties in with series' that I like to play. It came to my surprise to find that there was not a lot of books, blogs or any real discussions about video game merchandise – most certainly the more obscure products. So I decided to make a book about my collection that's has high quality pictures, descriptions of both the product and my personal experience with them. For the start of the project I was looking into video game memorabilia collecting blogs, books, videos and forums. I wanted to see what they have done before and see if I could do anything different to stand out or find something of worth to use in my own work. I noticed a common theme with each source that I read, the page layouts was not engaging. To avoid this I made sure that the book I designed would have different layouts to keep the reader engaged. It is also informative describing what the r...

I'm now finalising the page layouts of the book about my Nintendo collection. Due to time the final book will instead be a booklet with twelve pages, originally it would it was going to be a book of sixteen. I'm really ok with this being a bit shorter in length as I'm going to make this book over the course of a couple of years from now. So this is more of a prototype but a greatly designed prototype as this is the style as I will make the proper book like. This week I have also spent my time cutting out each picture in Adobe Photoshop and giving it a grey background making it look professional. I have also changed the intro pages by making it solid red with bold text and a picture of of what's to come mixed with the red. This has a very slick and professional design that I'm quite found of. Which means the graphic pages are now not as common as the all red pages. This week I have learnt about cutting out pictures in Adobe Photoshop and making slick pages. ...

This week I started working on the page lay out and the over all design for the book. It is important for me that the layout, typography, pictures, graphics and overall style shines bright. For the first test for what the book layout might look like, I chose the Mario Pikachu promotion and the Video Game All-Stars Mario Kart 64 Figures. The reason I chose these is because the Mario Pikachu promotion is so peculiar and out of these world while the Mario Kart figures are some of the most sort out Nintendo collectibles on the market. Again using my Pinterest examples I using in my scrapbook. Using pictures that I have already taken in a light box, I cropped them so they can have a transparent background. For the text I used: DIN Alternate because it gives a pleasant vibe that stays with the rest of the book. I used graphics that I have made to help give the book some identity. Overall I think the look I was going for is going to be a reality.

I'm still knee deep in doing prototyping and working things out for my book. I think that the book will need to have the same graphical style to keep the book focused. So that means I gave the main Mario icon a full body using the same style. I also gave him the simplified treatment for when it was a head. Besides on working on making the Mario icon better I have also been working on the book layout and typography. Since I want the book to bee fun yet informative I need to make sure the type isn't too distracting. I went back to my Pinterest inspiration to help get a slick, modern and simplistic style for presenting information. I noticed that a lot of the pictures I saved had a certain grid that they stuck to in order to keep in character. I also found some more examples of book layouts have I have created templates for myself to follow. With these templates there are guides that are there for me to follow and to keep titles, texts and pictures in an orderly fashion. However e...

Now that all the research has been taken care of I can now focus on experimenting and prototyping on my book Idea. Using books and Pinterest articles as my guidance I started to picture what the page spreads are going to look like. I believe the book should be fun and informative but not to distracting or text heavy. I'm going to need to find the perfect balance between the two extremes. In the book I would like to use graphics of Nintendo characters though out the sections. There'll even be graphics based on what what section it is like figures or board games. I'm going to make this personal and fun, in order to give a good reason in to wanting to read the book. I feel like its such an interesting and peculiar subject that hasn't been done too often. It'll be a great challenge has I have never designed a proper photo and graphic design book before however I'm looking forward to the task and making sure this is a book that gamers and non-gamers alike will bee en...

For my final project start to make a book that I hope to finish in the future and that book is about my Nintendo collection that I started when I was three years old. I like to think of this book as a way to preserve Nintendo history, many types of video game merchandise can become lost in time. During my research I was surprised that there is not a lot of books, blogs or social accounts that share their video game collection. Despite what little sources I found a great blog called VideoGame Memorabilia Museum which doesn't upload often but does a great job in giving important facts about the toy that's being featured. I also found a Twitter account that does update often called タンジェント(Mario Collecter) @blacktangent. Unfortunately I can read Japanese but I can sense the passion in every post. I also have two books about different types of Nintendo collections. I always read them but for research I looked at them in a different light like they way present information, the way th...

We finally got to making the exhibit and we designed to be the AlarmingDance Experience, in which guests can take the role of waking up and doing the dance. Just like the app was intended to be. I thought our display was very successful, as it was quite minimalist. The area only had some posters of Clanky, a bed with a lamp, a Clanky tee-shirt, an iPad holding our design process and a place for the guest to place there phone. There phone would record them dancing and they would then share tag there self dancing to our Instagram. If we had more time I would of liked to place more tee-shirts designs but on that day the iron press was not heating up to its full potential so we only had to settle on the one hanging up. We also wanted a large Clanky face on the floor to represent a themed disco dance floor however due to time restraints it couldn't be done. My biggest regret is that the booth could not live up to its full potential as the whole class ran over time and so each group had ...

Durning the group project I was in charge of doing the identity of the brand, doing the logo, icon and the character: Clanky the alarm clock. I think the think that worked well in my work is that the character Clanky is very cute. He can do a wide range of expressions, be any colour and can even be themed to holidays. I thought is was important to have arms and legs do he can dance, which the app is about dancing after all. There have been some qualities to the Clanky design that I've had some problem is that his arms and legs have been quite restrictive and doing more completing poses has been something of a challenge. He can also be compared with other cartoon characters which means he might not be able to stand out much. During the project I found it difficult to change the design of the mascot and the logo by myself. Since we as a group have much time during class sessions trying to change something and not get immediate feed back has been tiring. Planing for this project was a...

For our second part of the unit we had to create a brand that solves an identified problem in a group project. Each member has a key role to play during the next two weeks. After we've crated the brand, presented the problem and the solution we then produce an expo for the product. We had a long discussion about the problems that are currently happing on Earth like animal pouching, homelessness and people with life threatening diseases. After discussing about the world issues that we care about somebody mentioned that they couldn't wake up in the morning and someone else said that they always wanted to open a dancing school. The problem we chose for our team was the trouble of waking up in the mourning with a alarm clock app, thats forces you to do a dance to stop it. We as a team collectively thought that the idea was fun, refreshing and an alarm clock that has not been before. The idea was also well received by other groups. Since everyone in the group was given a unique rol...

(Sorry forgot to post something during the first week) We were given a new brief: What is Beauty. We all had to chose what we found beautiful and make something based on what were going to do in the future. When I was first given the project I immediately knew what was going to base my work around, video game art and box art. The art direction in a game is very important as it sets up the tone and gives the virtual world its identity. The Box art is also key in making the game a success has it has to try and tell what the game is all about while try to lure new buyers into purchasing the product. As this is my favourite hobby I think its pretty obvious that I would look deeper then the average consumer. I think that the cover of video games has started to decrease in quality since the early 2000s. Before then artists had to create original that told the story in the code. They were works of art in there own right, kinda like movie posters or book covers. Nowhere days game major gam...

I think the most successful part of my work for this project is how real the work looks, it portrays what an actual Nintendo Switch game box looks like. I think the work is missing is some game company logos and the spine with the back cover. With these extra add ons it will help give the work some realism. What I found most difficult was getting the square blocks pixel perfect as there needed to be a system of for the pixels to travel. It was also tricky to get the front on the Switch box template, sometimes the pixels would go over the logo or they would over lap with the corners of the template, It took time to find the right balance. My planning really helped me stay on task and also for the work ahead. I was able to keep my work consistent, did an avalanche of research and experimentation. For improvements I'll try to put more work into my timetable and do more working out during the working out period. Skills that I have picked up on is that now I can now properly aline pix...

My portfolio shows and demonstrates what I'm capable of doing. I designed my portfolio to professional and smart. If this is something to present then I'll make sure it's presentable and has the best quality. First its shows the prototype and then it shows the final product. Since this will be seen by many different people I made sure that the paper is soft tough to get it that extra form of seriousness. The most important thing for a portfolio to have during an interview is text under the work. If someone is looking at the work and you don't have text then there not going to get what the work is. I made sure that my portfolio has enough text. For improvements I could include more work and different types of work, to show that I can do more then just whats on the portfolio.  I believe that presentation went well with some hiccups. Over all I think that I presented my work to the best of my abilities. I spoke about my work with great confidence, I was even able to u...