Bibliography

References

Ball, W. (2014). Home - Victoria Ball Illustration. [online] Victoria-ball.co.uk. Available at: http://www.victoria-ball.co.uk/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2014].

Easyhealth.org.uk, (2014). easyhealth.org.uk. [online] Available at: http://www.easyhealth.org.uk/listing/mental-health-(leaflets) [Accessed 7 Feb. 2014].

Gemmacorrell.com, (2014). Gemma Correll - Illustration. [online] Available at: http://www.gemmacorrell.com/ [Accessed 14 Jan. 2014].

Healthysocialcreative.org.uk, (2014). Download | Healthy, social, creative. [online] Available at: http://www.healthysocialcreative.org.uk/index.php/download/ [Accessed 11 Feb. 2014].

It, W. (2014). Victoria Ball: contemporary lifestyle and children's illustrator. [online] We Heart It. Available at: http://weheartit.com/entry/group/8884436 [Accessed 3 Feb. 2014].

Mhws.org.uk, (2014). Mental Health & Wellbeing in Ealing. [online] Available at: http://www.mhws.org.uk/gujarati [Accessed 12 Feb. 2014].

Stephencollinsillustration.com, (2014). Colillo. [online] Available at: http://www.stephencollinsillustration.com/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2014].

Trust, 2. (2014). 2gether NHS Foundation Trust: Home. [online] 2gether.nhs.uk. Available at: http://www.2gether.nhs.uk/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2014].

Evaluation

I feel that I have successfully completed my aims but haven’t necessarily achieved the best possible outcomes. I think I am still involved in the process and would like to continue this further.  The route I took was the right one and led me to the right conclusions.  My aims started off simple and I wanted to tackle the stigma of mental health using quirky, in your face, characters. I found this hard to do as I didn't want to offend or confuse my target audience. I also wasn't sure where I was going with it or how it would solve any of my objectives. I realised I wanted my work to have a good purpose and to help people and I started to look into mental health charities and organisations. I got a lot of tips and advice and illustrated one of their advice sheets. I changed the style I was originally working in to illustrate the different tips. This meant my objectives changed. My initial illustrations conveyed different mental health issues and the different characters had quirky facial expressions. Whereas the illustrations for the tips and advice sheet were characters acting out the advice. My objective became to create gentle illustrations that helped young people to relax when first approaching the topic of mental health. My target audience also changed from 13 - 20 to 11- 13. I did actually begin to prefer the idea of a younger target audience and it gave my project much more direction. I felt I had achieved what I had wanted in terms of reaching out to young people and promoting sources of help. Although I would also like to continue to use my original style, at times, in order to keep a personal touch to my work and the brighter, quirkier style is more suited to posters and badges as is much more eye catching. Using illustration and quirky ideas I want to continue reaching out to young people regarding mental health issues.  I’d like for the tips and hints to become common knowledge among young people and for there to be mental health workshops in schools. If children are made more aware of how to take care of their physical and mental wellbeing (and the importance of doing so) from a young age, then they will be better prepared to tackle difficult or disturbing situations and will be more aware of how to look after themselves physically and mentally. I’d like my illustrations to be a useful tool in promoting this information and advice.  Overall I think I am on the right track but my time keeping could have been better as I ran out of time to create some really professional outcomes.  I feel my objectives were met but on a small scale and I hadn’t had the chance to test them.  It was easy to research children’s books and what appeals to children but difficult in terms of my chosen area. This is because, so far, photographs are usually used for leaflets and posters regarding mental health - it is not something that is often illustrated. So it’s hard to research exactly what the appropriate style to use is. There has been a lot of trial and error, and there will continue to be. I feel this was a worthwhile project,  I enjoyed it and will continue to work on it.

Finished Pieces

My finished pieces are a selection of all completed work that work together in different style to promote sources of help and illustrate tips and advice. My final work is a selection of images that are available to be printed onto merchandise, used for leaflets and posters.