Copyright Infringement - Memes and Emojis

Including memes in my book was something I was intent on from the start - this was something that would really get my audience's attention and I absolutely loved the idea of it. However, a lot of online memes have copyrights attached to them, so couldn't be use in my work. I knew I had to be very careful of this, so did a lot of research on the subject beforehand. You can find the information I discovered in my 'Useful Links' post. While I found that, sadly, a lot of the memes my audience had suggested were tied to copyright laws, I did discover that there were some that weren't (like 'doge', which is 100% usable unless it's referred to as 'doge'). I also found that a lot of 'verbal memes' were also free for use.

Similarly with emojis. They are free for use as long as they are drawn by yourself and not copying anyone else's design.

Social Media Posts - 30/4

This is my final post I'm going to be making before finishing my book. I didn't have a strong idea of what to do when planning this post. I decided on just this cute, drunk Milton with a caption "hyping" my final comic and promising a preview next week.

Including Perspective

Due to the fact we had looked into it so in-depthly during class, I wanted to utilise my perspective practice during the creation of quite a few of my pages, but particularly my bulldog clip hacks, as I felt this would really add to the pages. I'm super happy with how they worked out!

Social Media Posts - 23/4

For today's post, I finally revealed my cover. I only noticed after posting that I'd accidentally uploaded my lower quality file, so it doesn't look great. But I couldn't delete and reupload, as by the time I noticed, the posts had already achieved some engagement. I will have to be more careful looking out for this in the future.

Non-Hack Pages

The first few pages cover dedications, credits, intro and character intro. As these weren't hack pages, I wanted them to be instantly recognisable and easy to distinguish. I went through a lot of difficulty with these pages, as I wanted them to be basic and text-based, without being too boring. You can see my process in these screenshots...

Idea 1 - No background.
Idea 2 - Cover background (and then with white backing on text).
Idea 3 - Idea 2 in greyscale.
Final Idea - Idea 3 with background faded slighlty.

I also added a little, fun drawing of Milton into his profile page, as it was the last info page and I wanted them to flow into the hacks easily...

Language

Language is something that's extremely important in my book, as I want it to come across as relatable and conversational as possible for my audience. A great resource for trying to understand modern humour is Tumblr and meme culture. Predominantly, the humour is nonsensical and blunt. Here are a few key references...

I used this internet dark-humour language in my intro page here...

Inside Covers

Initially, I intended to have a pattern of repetitive tiny Milton's on my inside covers (you can see a scribbly mock up of this in my layouts), but I later decided that this would be too much and chose to have plain inside covers instead. However, the closer I got to producing the book, the less I liked the blank pages. For this reason, I decided on doing something I'd seen very evident in over book - using the pattern from the cover, but in greyscale. I also noticed that I had a lot about my Comic Nest group on my cover, but nothing about myself - not even my name! Though I didn't mind this, as this is typical for some non-fiction books, I decided to include an 'About the Author' section on the inside back cover...

Cover Design

Although I had a very successful and popular cover design in the 'self-help book' parody cover I created, I wasn't entirely happy with it. Although it was intentionally bad, I felt that hindered it's marketing ability (that was talked about in our cover design lecture). I also wanted something that really communicated my style and the style of the book - which is quite graphical and design-based.

One thing I did decide to keep from the other design was the book title. I had it there as a placeholder, mostly, and because it sounded like the typically conversational-type title a self-help book would have. But it came out as one of the most popular parts of the cover when presented to my target audience, along with the design of Milton himself.

After deciding on this title, I made the choice to include a photograph of pasta in the background. This is due to the fact that, not only do I think adding photography into a piece of art looks really striking, but also having food in branding has proven to be really attention grabbing (particularly to hungry people, which there will be lots of at MCM!). While I did try to take my own photos of pasta, they didn't come out very well (see below). For this reason, I decided to use a royalty free stock image I found online.

      

Below, you can see my final cover design...

Final Layout Plan

Above, you can see my final layouts for all my pages. The order of the pages was informed by my table plan. I wanted similar hacks to be near each other (starts with study hacks, moves through to home hacks, then food hacks), and similar design styles to be near each other (eg. with pages 8 and 9).

Layouts are the most crucial part of book planning for me. I find that once my layouts are finished, I'm more compelled to start the book itself. This is because - even though layouts aren't as necessary with this as they are with a comic - they take the intimidation out of starting a final book.

Font Choices

Font is something that is extremely important when designing a book like mine. I chose two fonts that were 100% royalty free, from DaFont.com to include in my book - one for headings and one for the bulk.

'MOON GET!' was chosen due to it's boldness, clarity, and how good it looks in all caps. I will use this font for titles and headings...

'Forced Square' was chosen because it's very edgy and modern-looking whilst still maintaining a lot of uniqueness. It's the kind of the thing that could be instantly recognisable if my book somehow became very popular! An example of both fonts are below...

Social Media Posts - 16/4

Today's social media posts were showing the bird I designed yesterday. I explained the reason and gave him a cute lil backstory to make him more relatable! As well as this, I posted the selfies we took in the meeting and explained briefly what was discussed to try to gain some hype for MCM. This was supposed to be posted on the weekend (as with all of our general posts) so as to not clash with anyone's day, but it wasn't done.

Potential Sticker Option

As discussed in the group meeting, I began designing a sticker idea for our free 'after-purchase' lucky dip. My prompt was 'red' (my colour within the group) and 'bird' (for the group logo). Below is what I came up with. However, shortly after producing this, the group altered their plan of what they wanted the sticker designs to be like. I don't mind that too much, as I wasn't very happy with this design...

Book Printing Costs

Although the uni printer offers very competitive pricing, I want a very specific finish on my book and it's cover. This is because I intend to market my product as more of a book than a comic due to the content. I hope to have a thick, silk finish cover, with natural inner pages. This is a quote I found for my specifications on mixam.co.uk -

This works out (when postage is included) to about £1.50 per book. Which is more than reasonable considering we today decided that we'd be selling our books for £5 each. I will most likely purchase my books through this site.

Poster Printing Costs

I plan to print A3 posters to sell at MCM alongside my book. Although I understand that small, postcard-type prints tend to sell better than larger pieces, I'm willing to take the risk. This is because I feel my design (which is a reprint of one of my humour-based pages) will look better and clearer when printed larger. Hopefully, it will also stand out against the smaller prints in comic village. Due to this choice, I need to remember to take elastic bands to roll the posters.

I intend to print around 25-30 posters, and want them to be relatively high quality. I've checked a variety of sites to find the best price and style for what I want...

pixel2print.co.uk

cheapestprintonline.co.uk

instantprint.co.uk

posterpigeon.co.uk

stressfreeprint.co.uk

Depending on how high quality I want the paper to be, and what quantity I decide on, I will either order through Pixel2Print or InstantPrint.

Meeting Discussion - 13/4

Recently, we've been finding that things have been discussed in class and on our group chat (where group decisions are usually made) have been getting lost and forgotten, and a lot of misunderstandings have arisen. To combat this, we all agreed we should sit down to discuss anything that is on our minds at this time.

To ensure the meeting was as efficient as possible, I created a short list of points to discuss. Each of these, along with basic notes on our responses to them can be found below...

1. Clothing - Wear your bird colour, with badge, when not cosplaying. If anyone wants a shirt or anything contact Gee. Pins to Daniee.

2. Table cloth/layout ideas - Alex black table cloth. Print logo and stitch it on. Easels (for 'read me' versions of books), business cards under these. Lucky dip - free if you buy - stickers, sweets? Paint easels our colours! Test layout before con - Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday before.
   
3. Schedule (who's at table when) - as message in chat states. Send screenshot in chat. Learn each other’s pitch.
   
4. London transport - look for oyster cards we already have and post in chat about it. Daniee to get directions.
   
5. Payment tracking (table counting money/sales) and float - £10 to float each. Alex £10 note. Katy two £5 notes. Daniee £5 note and five £1 coins. Meg ten £1 coins. Gee five £1 coins and ten 50p. Spreadsheet - on phone and on paper. Gee to make spreadsheet. Separate spreadsheet with total spent on group stock.
   
6. Comic Nest merch - everyone draw birbs that are themed on their comics, including colour. To put in freebie jar. Deadline: 30th April.
   
7. General merch - four pieces including comic? Alex - unsure, sticker packs, 2 A6 prints? Katy - just prints (including gothic horror)? Daniee - 1 A5, 1 sticker pack, pins. Meg - 12 sticker pack, 6 sticker pack, stickers. Gee - A3 poster, temp tattoos (?), badges.

8. Comic pricing - Needs to be equal so no one accidentally undercuts. Lil commissions for some people (not Meg or Gee). Books - £5. Meg sticker packs - £2 (6) £4 (12). Indiv sticker - 50p. A6 - £2. A5 - £3. A3 posters - £3. Daniee sticker packs - £2 (5). Pins - £1. Temp tattoos - £1. Badges - £1.

9. Other items - Birb heart LED lights (Gee) for table? Extra money for night outs. Who's out when - Saturday night - Katy, Gee out. Thursday night - Daniee out. Alarms for shift time. Keep phone on loud. Gee needs ~12-3 ish off on Saturday. Laser cut bird to be used for promo photos during weeks before. Gee has camera/can take photos if needed.

Whilst discussing points (2) and (5), I sketched out ideas of what we were planning the table and spreadsheet to look like. Here's what we got from that...

Later this evening, I redrew the sketch digitally to clear up what our layout intends to be. I also did this to scale, as we were all very aware of the fact we were unsure of how to gauge table size. You can see that (with key) below. You can see that there is a lot more red (my colour) on the table than others. This is because, while everyone else has two products pinned up on the con grid, whilst I have one poster which is too large for the grids, so has to lie on the table. I'm also having a cardboard cut-out of my character on the table to attract customers.

Social Media Posts - 9/4

Today's social media post was announcing the winner of the competition. I chose the winner based on which prompt I could adapt into a page as best as possible, and which I thought was funny but also useful. I pulled a post together with some art to hint at the start of the winning page, a caption, and a screenshot of the winning entry. I used some basic editing and a picture of Milton to conceal the identity of the winner in case they didn't want it known on Facebook and Instagram. I quote tweeted the original tweet to tag the winner.

Social Media Posts - 2/4

This week I posted a quick reminder for anyone who wanted to join the giveaway. I felt that this was the most sensible thing to post at this time.

Deciding Which Hacks to Including

Above, you can see the table where I noted down all the hacks I could find, basic ideas on how I'd display them and the likelihood of me using them.

Due to the nature of my book be non-fiction and not having a narrative, this is the stage that is sort of the equivalent of script writing. Before creating this document, I was quite nervous about the current progress of my work, but having it all written down and planned out was really calming and helped me to finally get a sense of what my final book could be!