50 THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU'RE 11 3/4 - TASK

https://www.50things.org.uk/

'50 Things To Do Before You're 11 3/4' is a National Trust initiative to encourage children to explore in the countryside and experience the activities that their parents and grandparents would have when they were younger. The list includes learning how to skim stones, making a grass trumpet and climbing hills.

The task was to create a spread from an accompanying book to encourage children to engage with the activities, and could contain additional elements. The considerations were as follows:

• Quantity and size of type, and typeface used
• Visual balance between the image and the text
• Appropriate illustration style
• Flow and continuity of the design from one double page spread to the next
• Integration of type

Due to my illustration style and following on from the session's research I already knew which direction I wanted to take with my spread, and especially the typography. The work of Simms Taback and Vladimir Radunsky had encouraged me to be very expressive with type.

The first sketched idea shows the approach I was aiming for, with a childlike, cursive type style and overly simplistic illustrations with just charcoal on paper. I highlighted the word 'really' within the text to give the type some character and added 'get muddy' in parentheses to add humour and appeal to the child reading. I planned to add a simple, pale green and brown wash to the background.

These images show the development towards a more finalised illustration, and although I liked the style of the typography I felt that the composition wouldn't work together. I had planned to construct it all separately and  bring the elements together on Photoshop but they wouldn't blend together well.

I scrapped that page idea but kept with the same style, and focused my attention on illustrating the page for 'Climb a tree' instead.

Again, I used a childlike style for the text, and added the word 'tall', and embellished it. I chose thin and long strokes and rendered them like tree branches to bring the text in line with image.

This is the final spread that I designed, to meet the considerations stipulated:

• In terms of type, I was to look into the typeface used, and the quantity and size of it, as well as integrating it into the image. I feel that type and image is as one in this spread, and they both clearly follow the same style. I kept the text to a minimum, just adding one word, and set it large within the page.
• I had to choose an appropriate illustrative style and feel that a simplistic design like this is appropriate for any age group that it is aimed at. The paint seems naive, not always staying within the lines, and a limited palette was used. I added another element of interest, with the owl looking up at the child climbing the tree.
• The design should have been able to be continued throughout the book, and I feel that the layout of type on one side and illustration on the other definitely could be. The style of the text could also be changed throughout, to suit the location of the other activities.

TYPE IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Typography is an important consideration within children's book design, and a type style needs to be chosen that will compliment the illustration but not compete with or detract from it. The legibility of the type can differ in importance through age genres, and whether the child will be reading or read to.

In the 1800s and early 1900s when children's books first appeared, the type styles were similar to those in adult's books, with black serif type separate to the illustration and on a white or pale background.

Edward Lear - Alice Through the Looking Glass

Edward Lear's poem 'The Mouse's Tale' in his 1871 book takes the form of a concrete poem, where the text is formatted to the shape of a mouse's tail. This would all have been done my hand and would have been  a very time-consuming and fiddly operation.

The Scarecrow - Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters

The Scarecrow was published in 1925, and featured illustrations made up almost entirely of typographic characters and broke the conventions of text colours and orientation, with some type set diagonally. They were influenced by the art styles of Dadaism and challenged the boundaries of design. Although this was a ground-breaking attempt to shake up the environment of children's book design I do not feel it has really stood the test of time, and at the present day would probably only appeal to art students and design enthusiasts, and children would not be interested.

This is the House that Jack Built - Simms Taback

Simms Taback was an American author and illustrator who made great use of type, in books such as 'There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly' in 1998 and 'This is the House that Jack Built' in 2002. The text is very much a part of the illustration, and is always created playfully.

The Serif Fairy - John Siegfried

'The Serif Fairy' features characters and illustrations made up of different typefaces. I feel this is a modern reworking of 'The Scarecrow' and again is an experimental piece that wouldn't appeal to children due to the static nature of the illustrations and the fact that they would be difficult for a child to relate to. This book would again find its audience in design students and enthusiasts.

The Stinky Cheese Man - Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith and  Molly Leach

'The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales' is a collaborative work between author Jon Scieszka, illustrator Lane Smith and designer Molly Leach. The type interacts with the illustrations, which is shown on this page where the type is warped by the smell of the Stinky Cheese Man. I don't like the main illustration on this spread, but I do like the smaller vignette within the text and the way the text has bent around the image.

An Edward Lear Alphabet - Vladimir Radunsky

The type used in Vladimir Radunsky's 'Edward Lear Alphabet' is very expressive, and uses a lot of different styles. I love the scrawled hand drawn type used for the title, which has a very naive and childlike quality.

Type Considerations

• What is the age of the target audience?
• How much text needs to be included?
• Does it match the mood, tone and style of the book?
• Is the book to be read by the child, or read to the child?
• What is the book's genre?

Children's Type

These types designed specifically for children's literature tend to include:

• handwriting style a's and g's
• extended ascenders and descenders
• rounded and open counters
• medium weight
• mix of upper and lower case
• large x-heights

These features help the type appeal to children and make it suitable for their learning needs. Research has shown that round things are easier to ascribe values to, and so feel warmer and more friendly than older serif fonts. This form of typography can affect a child's willingness to read, encouraging for younger children but older children may feel that it is too young for them.

LYNNE CHAPMAN

Visual Style

• Lynne Chapman uses pastels on pastel paper to create a vibrantly colourful illustration
• She draws out the line work first, then traces over for the final image

Planning Processes

• She creates small thumbnail sketches for each page
• Her first sketches are rough and devoid of too much detail so that not too much is wasted if the work is scrapped
• Initially her characters are sketched from photographs, especially animals, before they are reworked to find the essence of the characters

ED EMBERLEY

Visual Styles

• Ed Emberley uses a wide variety of materials to create his work, including felt tip pens, digital software, childlike thumbprints, fineliners, watercolour brushes and even wood cutting.
• Much of his work features bold colours, with minimal detailing
• He began as a cartoonist, using old style materials
• Recently he has begun to branch out into interactive stories for tablets
• He deliberately changes his style regularly in order to appeal to a wide range of people.

Planning Processes

• Keeps separate line sketches and swatches of colour from old pieces of work in order to reuse them

ART STYLES - 3-6 YEARS

Books for this age group tend to be very creative and the illustrator has a lot of freedom, as the pictures tend to lead these stories. While the writer's job sounds quite difficult as they have to ensure the story is engaging for the age group but also limit their writing to short words, the illustrator can exhibit a lot more freedom. An illustrator that I enjoy for this age range is Axel Scheffler, whose pictures have a very noticeable style with large white eyes with black pupils and long noses. He has worked on some very popular children's books, especially with his collaborations with Julia Donaldson, and his illustrations are like a mark of quality for the book.

This style uses humour, and although all the eyes look the same I find that their placement and the placement of the pupil within the eye gives the characters their own personalities. This is a very important aspect of illustration in my opinion, and one that this particular art style excels at.

ART STYLES - BABY FIRST OBJECTS BOOK

The BBC4 documentary spoke about Helen Oxenbury's books for babies, and especially this one called 'Friends' that introduces the notion of friendship and companionship for very young babies. Like most books for babies, the illustrations are printed on board instead of paper, with smooth corners, to keep both baby and the book safe. This book doesn't need text, and just shows happy characters interacting. Features are kept to a minimum to encourage recognition, for example the baby's face contains just two dots for eyes and lines for the nose and mouth, and the colours are muted and distinct. Many books for babies are more tactile, and allow interaction.

Again, very simplistic illustrations are used, though I don't find these as appealing as those within Helen Oxenbury's 'Friends'. Many different textures are used, such as the fur patch on the bear's ear, which enables the baby to join in and learn through touch. I feel this is the most suitable art style for baby books as it adds another element of learning and fun.

ART STYLES - INFORMATION/REFERENCE TITLE

Children's reference books often use realism in their illustrations, and combine these with photography. Dorling Kindersley are famed for their children's encyclopaedias and atlases and use this mix of styles within their work to remain informative and interesting, and it is often necessary that these images are accurate and to scale.

This is shown in the above images. The spread with the beetle comparison seems to be mainly photographic, with all the insects scaled to the same degree to easily show size differences, and the pages about the children also mainly use photography, though there seems to be a few small illustrations on the page as well. This one seems quite dated due to the style of photography and page layout, and wouldn't have inspired me as a child, but there is a lot of information to convey there. The illustration of the squid is very realistic, which may be needed in the context of the encyclopaedia.

The Horrible Histories series made great use of illustrations within the books, which matched the tongue-in-cheek, humorous and occasionally gruesome text. Three illustrators were used for the series; Martin Brown, Mike Phillips and Philip Reeve, but a consistent style meant that the changes weren't noticeable across the titles.

These use a much more informal approach, with mainly line drawings within the books and a colourfully rendered and often embossed cover. The internal illustrations often resembled newspaper editorial cartoons, and used puns and humour which appealed to me when I read the books. I think this style of fun illustration can have a greater effect than realism, although sometimes that is required within the context of the book.