Our big project for the term is the creation of a children’s story book in e-book, print-ready and animated form. We will create this document in stages, and we will craft it using Adobe Creative Cloud software. Using InDesign, Premiere, Illustrator, Photoshop and Character Animator, we will craft a library of common assets to use between these products. At the end of the term, you should feel like you are creating one or two products rather than three distinct things.
You will work in groups of 2-3 throughout this process. Groups can change over time if they need to. I would prefer that no one work solo, as some of the video and animation work we’ll do at the end of the term are really time consuming, and it’s helpful to have more hands to share the load.
The first draft of this project will just be a basic mock-up of a children’s story your group might write. You will need to include images (and preferably text) on multiple pages of an InDesign document.
Materials
You will need the assets you’ve been working on in our labs over the last few weeks. You will also need your group discussion space in Canvas.
Due Date
One group member must upload your work to your group discussion board by January 26. Each group member must also submit a text note declaring what work they did in this process.
What You Need to Do
Using the character models and text generated in our labs so far, please craft an InDesign file with a draft or mock-up of your story so far. This should be pretty similar, or even identical, to your most recent InDesign lab.
Your work right now may include placeholder content, but you should be clear about what will go in that placeholder later on.
Your group should consolidate your work into one InDesign (*indd) file. Please export that file as a PDF (Print) as well. One group member must upload both to a new thread in your group discussion board on Canvas, or you must post a OneDrive link to your files in that same space if they’re too big for a Canvas attachment. Each group member (including the person posting) should reply to this thread to say what work they contributed to the project so far.
Grading
This GROUP assignment is worth 20 points (remember that the course is graded out of 100). Each group member will receive the same score unless something in your crit review or discussion board tells me that isn’t appropriate. I reserve the right to adjust grades as I see fit in this case.
Please note that the rubric is a series of nested categories. This is the best design I can come up with for something that would otherwise be a table with over a dozen rows. Almost every criterion is all-or-noting. We have had a full term and a lot of review notes to improve these materials to professional quality.
Th final draft is based on quality. There is plenty of time to polish and finalize all of your materials. A really good point of comparison for your material would be any of the old Mr./Ms. books if you have access to them, a Dr. Seuss book, or the excellent “___ for Babies” book series. If you don’t have babies and small children around you (what? you’re college students, not middle-aged boringpeople?), I can make some available to your group.
Books (12 points)
- It's a book! 5
- Book Components (2 points): You have a cover, a title page, book content, and a back cover. You have a brief blurb about each contributor to this book on the last page or back cover. Missing any one part of this reduces this score to 1 point. Missing two or more parts reduces it to 0 points.
- Print-Ready (1 point): The InDesign file of your book is set up and ready to be sent off to a printer. This includes appropriate margin, bleed and slug settings, as well as any printer’s notes if you wish to provide them.
- Printable (1 point): The printable PDF renders correctly on any machine and is ready for printing.
- Amazon-Ready (1 point): The EPUB file loads inside an ebook reader. There are no unreadable characters in your text or other unprofessional mistakes.
- Quality 3
- Page Design (2 points): Images and text should obviously be complete. No shapes should still need smoothing out or re-coloring. No text should be left in placeholder mode. All text should flow correctly from frame to frame.
- Consistency in Design (1 point): Color schemes and fonts should be consistent throughout each portion of your document. Where color schemes or fonts change, it should be obvious why that is the case (e.g. rear cover design vs. interior content design).
- Language 4
If your book is purely pictures, then the Visual Language portion of this score is doubled.
- Text Design (1 point): Your font-face must be legible and appropriate for your target age group. It must render on all machines in your PDF. Misspellings or poor/incorrect grammatical structures will result in a 0 on this score.
- Language Choice (1 point): The words and sentence structure you chose are appropriate for your target audience. You can use a readability measuring tool, but I won’t be that precise. Misspellings or poor/incorrect grammatical structures will result in a 0 on this score.
- Visual Language (2 points): The reading order and pattern of your book is clear. You encourage clear saccade paths between elements on each page, and it is obvious what I should fixate on. Colors and shapes are appropriate for your story.
Animated Short (8 points)
- It's a video! 5
- Motion Picture (2 points): A video file with audio and visual components is worth 1 point. As you are working on your final product, if you have decided to “Ken Burns” your animation, that’s fine. This just needs to be more than a PowerPoint in mp4 format.
- In-Story Audio (2 points): The audio in your story (narration, character voices, sound effects, ambient sound) is clear and appropriate for your audience.
- Out-of-Story Audio (1 point): Audio outside your story (discussion of the story, interjections) is clear and appropriate for your audience.
- Translation 3
- True to the Book (2 points): Your book should be read and shown in its entirety in your animated short. You might crop out parts of pages or modify some portions to make it more animation-friendly, but this should not be a completely different work. (i.e. Please don’t Polar Express this.)
- New Medium, New Work (1 point): Your video should add something to the reading process of your book. That is, the process of watching your video should feel like a different experience than reading your book.
Good Effort (*)
At the end of the term, if things just fall apart and your hard work doesn’t translate into a functional final product (that is, if you or your group put in a lot of effort but couldn’t get more than 5 points on this project), I reserve the right to change your grading scheme for this course.
In this case, you will receive a 0 on this project and your final grade will be calculated out of 90 points instead of 100, effectively increasing the weight of your labs and drafts. (So, getting A B/80% on everything up to this point but encountering disaster on the final project would yield a final grade of C/71% rather than D/64%). Canvas won’t be able to report the correct grade.
