MOUNTED DESIGNS

My designs are now mounted and ready for submission! I chose to mount them very simply on black board with no borders, and orientated portrait to make use of the available space. I added labels as a title on one board and with my name on both, and used hand-lettering again to reinforce the style and show the continuity. I feel that the designs are presented well, although I am less happy with the designs themselves.

From the moment I began looking into the 'around the world' story I drew out the landscape for Peru which led the rest of the book, as I was happy with how it looked and I received encouragement for the style. This presented problems with the rest of the designs as they had to follow suit, as did the method of colouring, and I never really settled on a design I felt 100% comfortable with. I am a little disappointed for this reason and wonder if I had chosen one of the other possible briefs if I would have found a solution that I liked more,  as this is an industry that I hope to work in. Overall though, this has been a good opportunity to go through the process of book design and develop a story and book that I wouldn't ordinarily have followed, and a good experience in expanding my style. Coupled with my choice of Independent Study, this has also led to a design passion of mine for hand-drawn lettering and illustration and something that I will definitely take into the future.

FINAL DESIGNS

Here are the final designs for the children's book for Naturesbase.

The cover continues the background illustration from the introductory page for Peru which I think makes a nice backing. I struggled with the cover more so than the inside pages - my initial designs on a similar story I didn't like due to the inclusion of illustrations of children which I feel isn't a strong point of mine and the previous one used a worn map effect as background but it was thought that this would appeal to an older age group than I was aiming for.

I am still not entirely happy with this design but I feel I have recreated the illustrative style of Herge's Tintin quite well. The title and back cover blurb are designed on a worn, aged paper style which is also continued within, and I have opted for hand-lettering. This use of hand-drawn type was the subject of my Independent Study and while initially I had wanted a change and to use Photoshop for the illustration with computer fonts, when encouraged to create the book by hand I decided on hand-drawn type. This suits the theme of this book, which I will expand upon when discussing the inside pages.

These pages would function as the start of the book. The left side introduces the book, encouraging the child to explore the world, and below this are instructions to create your own paper plane. In between the pages here is a tear out sheet with which to create the paper plane, and the right hand side says how to customise the plane and begins the tale in a humorous way. The pages use the same aged paper effect, which I hope gives the feel of an old explorer's map. The palette in the 'customise' section is created with colours found in the garden, something I was inspired to add after Gyles Morris' visit.

The explorer's map style is continued all the way through, here on the introductory page for Peru where describing briefly some of the features of that country. I kept the explanations brief and light to stay in keeping with the age group and focused on what I would have found interesting as a child. The use of hand-lettering within was designed to stay in keeping with the philosophy of the book, encouraging the reader to create things by hand and so I wanted to keep that obvious human touch prevalent in the book and not try to diminish that, rather celebrate it. This was a philosophy I took from extensive research into the subject in my Independent Study.

Although I have changed the story slightly from the notes from Gyles Morris. I hope I have done so in a way as to improve the book and its interactivity. I found the hot air balloon part of the story was too detached from the interactive side, and hand-made paper planes are in keeping with my idea here.

DESIGN UPDATE

At the peer assessment I was encouraged to introduce more of a hand-drawn edge to the illustrations, which I agree would add more character. I was enjoying using Photoshop for the illustrations as that is a new style for me, but completing my Independent Study on typography in picture books has given me a passion for hand-lettering and hand-created illustration. For these reasons I have remade the idea by hand.

I tried to recreate the image by hand as well as possible, while adding a rough and imperfect style to the lined  illustrations and finishing with a watercolour wash. This effect worked better than I thought it would and the uneven, mottled affect works well on the green areas and not too badly on the sky where it gives the impression of clouds.

In the top-left hand corner of the page I have recreated the banner on an old paper effect, titling the page 'Peru', while underneath is an old, worn, explorer's map showing more of the location. One of the pointers from the group session was that on the computer this style seemed to be aimed at an older age range than the genre of the picture book suggests but hand-drawn I think it is more suitable.

One major change to the story and the notes supplied by Gyles Morris is that it is no longer a balloon ride around the world but a paper plane instead. I feel this could add an interactive element to the book, where the child could play along and make their own paper plane which I will play around with earlier in the book.

The basic layout is the same and a similar style of worn paper will be used to explain the elements of the Peruvian country to continue the theme of exploration throughout. In the bottom corner is an introduction to the next pages of the book, which uses more colours than the explorers map style, where the reader can learn to make their own Peruvian headdress. I feel this would separate the activities from the information and make the book clearer to the child.

These designs are possibles for the new cover to follow with the different story. The title has to change, and I think it will be 'Paper Plane Explorer' which explains clearly the style of the book, but another option is 'Chocks Away' which is a famous aviation expression. I will continue the worn paper style here too but only as an addition to the main style as it may make the book look more grown up and appeal to the wrong age group.

The typography, and use of hand-lettering, will hopefully reinforce the idea that the story is for younger children as it tends to be used mostly in children's picture books for children around the age of 6.

This is a design for the other spread. Initially I was planning to illustrate the page following the layout for Peru, and show the reader how to create a headdress and make an Andean pattern. However, I think it would be more appropriate to design the first spread from the book, encouraging the reader to make a paper plane and introduce the story, while providing an extra sheet of paper to be used on the paper plane.

PEER ASSESSMENT

Cover design

Cover design

This week was the peer assessment for this module, and a chance to share ideas and explain your work to your peers and gain valuable feedback. The work that I presented is shown above, unfortunately unfinished pieces of work which isn't ideal, but due to the time it has taken to create them and time commitments with other projects this is where I am at with this task.

The feedback was generally positive, although the team seemed keen that I went with the same approach, just hand-drawn. I can see their point, and love to create work by hand, especially illustration, and so I think I will try again by hand. I will keep the same linear style however, and keep the Tintin books as an inspiration. I think that the group found that the computer aided style that I had utilised wasn't best suited to the age group and genre that I am aiming for, and instead thought it would appeal to older children. I definitely take this on board, and it was something I should have considered more, and I will need to look at how similar titles aim their information at a younger audience.