Monday 27 June 2011

Children's Book Cover

We had to come up with a book cover entitled 'Animals from around the World'.

First of all I had a brainstorm in my sketchbook..


Then I had a good look around the  house, in the library and on the internet for information books for Children and there seemed to be an awful lot of photography based book covers.

However, I wondered if there a way of injecting some humour into the image, or a bit of information, to give the adult/child a bit of a hint of the bizarre animals and funny facts that might be inside the book!!

I chatted with lots of children who liked photos, humour, a bit of information, and the creating a title out of the animals themselves.


I liked the idea of separating the animals into body parts - funny noses, eyes ears - a sort of play on the Heads, Bodies, Legs game that I used to play as a child. 


I also decided that I would like to create a sort of Animal Explorer's Notebook idea with facts and sketches for my 2nd visual.

My 3rd visual was to be a play on the words.

The Heads Bodies Legs idea I decided would be  photography based, so I scoured the internet for funny body parts!




So the Body Parts ended up being Eyes, Noses, Skin, Mouths and tails... I wondered about the idea of creating little colour cards for each animal and pockets along the cover, so that the child could take out the card, turn it over to find out what the animal was, where it was from, what it eats, how big it is etc and then slot it back in. Children are obsessed with cards and collecting!

The 2nd Idea was the Explorer Pack idea.... I found some interesting facts and then sketched the relevant animals, added some compasses, telescopes, footprints, maps, and then scanned the whole lot in to create a notebook effect in the computer.






I wondered whether it would be better to incorporate a bit of colour, so I tried adding a photographic penguin... but I'm not sure..



This would, I think appeal to the slighter older child in the age bracket... my 7 yearold loved this one. My 5 yearold loved it as long as I read the facts to him!

The 3rd idea went for the slightly younger age group and was a play on the words - I tried to create the title out of the words 'Animals from around the World' - I sketched the idea first:


Then I scanned and coloured it, and placed it over a map that I had done in coloured crayons. I added a drop shadow to bring out the letters, but I'm not sure that this quite worked. I did the font on the tablet.



Finally I added a border around the edge. 



same thing with polar bear cleaned up
and no drop shadow

I think that the 3 ideas are very different in appeal and it would slightly depend on the contents of the book and the brief to know which would hit the mark best. I thought that the first one was rather similar to a lot out there, unless the idea of the pockets and cards was picked up. The 2nd 'Explorer' idea is my favourite, and would stand out - I think it would appeal to adults to buy their youngsters, and the facts would make the children want to open the book. The 3rd is obviously targeted towards the younger end of the spectrum, but I think it's cool colours and 'breaking the code' of reading the text would be appealing. 




MUSEUM POSTER

The Brief was to create a series of A3 posters for the following markets: Child (age 5-9), Teenager (13-16) and General Adult Audience.

I chose the Imperial War Museum as I had recently visited it and found it absolutely fascinating for all ages.   I visited it with children aged 5-11 boys and girls and adults of both sexes. So the only market that I had not any representation from was the Teenage market.

The children were most interested by the Blitz Experience, the Trench Experience and the 1940s house, particularly the Mickey Mouse Gas Mask appealed to them.

As they had largely failed to appreciate the real experience of the trenches, I decided that the Children's War exhibition which featured a great deal of memorabilia of the time, personal journals and drawings done by evacuees and the Blitz Experience were the best suited to the Children's Market.

I chose the Trenches for the Teenagers as some of the youngest recruits were less than 16 in the first world war.

the Holocaust seemed to be a possible for the Adult market, but I wasn't so sure about that.

There was a great Slogan on one of the Posters that I saw at the Museum '3 words to the Whole Nation: Go To it'  - a possible source of continuity for the posters?

I then set about a visual brainstorm



.From there I opted for the 2 sided notion of parallel lives reflected in the two halves of the 'family' of posters. On One side the Child/Teenager/Adult in wartime and on the other side going about their modern lives.

Note: I used a lot of photographic references for bombs, costume, props etc as well as for the modern sides... too much to place on the blog!!

Child: Going on Holiday v Being Evacuated - gave me the Blitz as a backdrop for one side and the parallel Holiday paraphernalia on the other side. I decided to use a Girl - but have planes and a boy in the background to cover both sexes. My thought was that boys seem to want to see planes and bombs whereas girls are more empathetic. Massive generalisation, but perhaps an element of truth? Disney gave me another idea as a modern parallel - the Disney Gas Mask and Disney Ears that you can get in Disneyworld...


Teen: I wanted to go for the idea of a Boy in the Trenches unaware of his birthday, and a boy in modern day off to Glastonbury - mud for mud!! What are you doing for your 16th Birthday?

Adult: Commuter - getting off a train at Waterloo (nearest to the Imp War museum) and an Auchwitz prisoner arriving at the Gas Chambers on the wooden trains. Off to Work?





I worked up the compositions, but really wasn't sure how to render them. I wondered about a sort of negative image on one side and positive on the other, to highlight the two different eras. I wanted to stylise the figures a bit, but not too much. I also wanted to make the 3 into a series that were clearly related.




the other note I had to myself was that I wanted the images to be arresting to all ages, but also to have something more to them on 2nd, 3rd and 4th glances. I wanted the passer by to look, be interested and understand.

My first attempt was the Child's Poster. I was aware that the audience was divided as it always is for children; the Adult is the one that decides what the child will see or buy, so it has to appeal - look fun, interesting and educational. First a did a pen and ink version of the design and then added texture, photographic images and colour. I wanted the foreground image to stand out and never quite felt it got there in this one. The other problem with this was the Mickey Mouse Mask. I'm not entirely sure that people will know what it is. I tried using a photo - but I couldn't find one that was quite right. If I were to do it for real, I would take a good photo of it in use and montage that on. Instead I put the name into the title for the sake of this exercise.
Initial pen and ink drawing for photoshop

I added a texture from a painting that I had done some time ago, which had a good swirling misty effect which could be water or smoke. 




Composition with colour felt a bit thin
I layered and played with the effects to create more of a sepia tone and added some photo montage.



Final Visual
Perhaps the dress should change colour in a straight line, on reflection.

For the Teenager I tried Collage for the foreground figure while keeping the same photo montage and texture in the background. I felt the this created a more stylized effect and as such I think has a bit more impact. I'm not sure if it is clear that it is glastonbury, but I think you get the idea of the Guitar on one side becoming a bayonet on the other side. I chose a night time filter type blue for the Glastonbury side and a sepia toned burnt muddy brown to represent the dirt and fire of the Trenches on the Trench Side.  I used 'Text speak' language to try to appeal to the modern teenager.
paper collage and pen detail



I wasn't sure about the Glastonbury image, the Union Flag was a bit ambiguous in the context of the poster, so I redid it with a more festivally picture and also changed the slogan to make it clear how young the teenager was. Although their were younger men that joined up, they were in the Navy, according to my research, so I opted for a 16 yearold.

Perhaps the sepia tone blended him too far into his background?


Final Teenage Poster

Onto the Adult poster, I took the negative idea a bit further in this version, playing with the black stripes on white of the Auchwitz uniform and the Black of the Commuter's coat. I'm not sure how well this works. I also split the face into two using a grey tone for the Auchwitz side. Again, the wording would be crucial, I played with a simple 'commuting?' then 'Auchwitz or Waterloo' to bang the message home and then 'Single or Return' to make a play on the fate of the prisoners and commuters. I think that i like the 'Single or Return' idea best,  as long as the image is recognizable enough as the Auchwitz uniform?

the collage which I then layered in the computer


Final Adult Poster
I am a bit dissappointed in all of them. I think perhaps the Teenage one is the clearest and most direct. If I were to have access to the Mickey Mouse mask I would photograph a child wearing it and use that so that it is crystal clear what it is. I am worried the the Adult one is a bit difficult to understand. However, I still like the concept - just not sure about my ability to get it down on paper!