Overall I was pretty happy with the project. I regret not thinking of the book idea earlier in the term because I think it could have been so much more. I felt very limited on the time in which I had to finish the book since it took at least a week to ship. Other than that I like how the postcards and the spread for the end of year book finished. I liked the layout of the book and am glad I stayed with white pages instead of black. Initially I thought of using black because I thought it looked cleaner with the images but now I'm glad I didn't. I like the white space and don't feel that the images get lost in the blackness of the book. I thought the postcards turned out pretty nice. After deciding to go in the book direction I felt that the pictures that I was using were the most important aspect of the project. I wanted to keep that theme with the postcards and therefore I used four of the pictures on the fronts of the cards. I wanted the back to have an image of the skyline since I feel that that is what makes Chicago. I also decided the line separating the area in which you write your message from the address would be information about the image on the front. Finally, I thought the show went pretty well. I got a lot of really good feedback from students and parents alike and a lot of people telling me they wanted to visit the city after seeing my project. This is obviously a good sign since that was the basis of my project. I'm glad I went in the book direction with postcards since those seemed like pretty big hits with many people.

This is the video I created about the project. It gives a brief idea on what you are able to accomplish while visiting the city of Chicago as well as giving various destinations to specific places of interest. I tried uploading the video directly to blogger but it never seemed to work. I provided a link instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpMP3UEh9B4&feature=channel_video_title

The postcards for the project:

These are the four pages for the end of year book.

At this point I'm waiting for the book to be shipped (which should be here in the next two to three days) and started creating postcards for a few of the pictures. I like the idea of postcards because it gives the consumer another option to view the city as well as send out to friends to bring more people in. Along with a "coffee table book" people can post the postcards on a fridge or tack board and be reminded of the places they visited. I'm also working on finishing the script for the short video of the photos and should have that done in the next day. Once that's in place I'll record everything and finish everything in final cut.

I've changed my idea to create a book of pictures that I find relevant and important to the city of Chicago. Each picture will encompass what I feel dictates what Chicago is like. I plan on using photos as well as illustrations in the book. I'm still planning on covering the same categories but because things are becoming more personal now I feel that I won't offend others if I leave certain categories out. I also plan and creating a mini film in FinalCut which I explain the relevance of each picture as they are flipped through.

Taken from the Chicago Sun Times which is a major newspaper in the city

Colors from Kuler

Update