I started out hoping to make an interactive version of my FMP book, although I wasn't really sure where to start and struggled to find ways of successfully managing this. I felt quite restricted by limiting myself to using the page layouts from my FMP, and from having to think of ideas that I could easily make into a page of a book.
I changed my idea to not limit myself to a book format, and I do think I have managed to successfully produce interactive items to compliment my book. By changing the format of my experiments I hugely expanded the possibilities of my experiments, and therefore changed the outcome of my project.
Creating interactive items from paper and card to accompany my book has been a really interesting and useful experience. First of all I think it is a great method of promoting my book, as it helps it to stand out in the huge mass of books that are currently on the market. Secondly, I think it is really important in the modern world full of technology and screens for children to still be encouraged to use their imagination and creativity, and I really like the idea of creating simple games and products to help get children do this. Despite all the technology available to them, if you give a child some pens or some paint and a big piece of paper it will keep them entertained for hours, which I think shows just how much children enjoy being creative, and I would really like to produce work that helps to encourage this.
I think the element of craft and children making things themselves has been an important aspect of my project. I think that even the simplest process of "making" a toy, such as cutting out and putting together a split pin doll, encourages creativity and gives children a sense of accomplishment by letting them feel that they have made that toy themselves.
The amount of kits you can buy for children with activities such as paint by numbers, or glueing together a hand puppet, reinforces this idea that children enjoy going through the creative process of making a toy before they play with it, even if it is a simple process of cutting around a shape and sticking the pieces together.
As well as the creative side of my products, there is also a very traditional theme. Toys made from card and paper have been given to children for generations as they are cheap and simple,. Because of this there is a very nostalgic element to them. Parents often like to give their children toys that they themselves played with as children as it brings back all sorts of memories, and this makes it an activity that both parents and children will enjoy.
I have used some of my more successful experiments as promotional material, for example I took my two split pin dolls to London Book Fair, and I put the designs for my first card game into my portfolio.
I got a lot of positive response for these two pieces, particularly the card game designs, and I have since had two companies that I met in London email me about possible future work, so these are definitely pieces of work that I will use again in the future.
I think quite a few of the pieces of work I have produced turned out successfully, and with a few adjustments I think I can use a lot of them as pieces of self promotion and to sell in my online shop.
Although my project has been based around the book I have been doing for my FMP, I think that some of the items I have made will be really easy to expand on and adapt to be used for future projects. For example, I have created two designs for split pin dolls using my character and her pet cat, but now that I have experimented with how to design and produce them I can use this information to successfully create other designs that aren't linked with this book, and are perhaps inspired by a book I am working on in the future.
Overall I think that despite the slow start to the beginning of this project, it has been a success and has provided me not only with promotional material, but also with the beginning designs of many products I can produce for my online shop. From my experiments I have learnt some useful techniques and produced some strong pieces of work that I can definitely use.
I have really enjoyed using these new techniques and seeing my work used in different formats from the usual books or drawings. I think it has given me a fresh outlook on the types of items my work can be used on and with, which will help me to experiment further. A lot of these items, like the dress up doll and the card games, are things I will definitely continue to produce in the future, and I think many of these experiments can be on-going and help inspire me even after this project has finished.
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