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Part 4: Style

Exercise: A Children’s Book

Brief

You are asked to produce a cover illustration for a natural history book for children (age 7-11) entitled Animal from Around the World. the image is to be used as a full colour front jacket to encourage children to choose this book from the library shelf.

There is a long history of covers for children’s reference books and styles have changed over the years, however people have become used to ‘reading’ the imagery used and have expectations of what such cover will look like. Think about a modern audience and how you can attract children to the contents.

Draw up at least three ideas as colour client visuals. Include the information on the final size and format, and where the type will be positioned.

Note the decisions you made through the design process.

Research

I began this exercise by carrying out general research about illustrating for children’s books:

99Designs: How to break into children’s book illustrating

TutsPlus: From A Childs View: 30+ Creative Children’s Book Covers

InDesign Skills: The Most Stylish Children’s Book Designs

I then looked at some illustrators who focus on illustrating for children and/or use animals as the subject matter:

Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators

Interview With Maja Säfström: Drawing animals gives you so much freedom

Maja Säfström

Kate Slater

Bright Children’s Authors & Illustrators

Daniel Riley

From this initial research, the main themes for this genre of illustration that I noticed were:

  • The use of bold, saturated colours, particularly for book covers.
  • Most of the characters/animals were simplified/stylised in design and did not have to be representative, or even recognisable. They also had easily readable expressions and intentions.
  • The typography was an important factor in terms of selecting a font choice that fits in with the overall style and the placement in the composition.
  • The use of texture and that a high proportion had a hand-drawn/painted style.

Next I found examples of children’s book covers on the subject of ‘animals from around the world’:

Seek and Find: Animals around the World by Aubry Cohen – I did not really like the style of illustration on this cover, but I quite liked how the animals fit around one another in the composition.

My First Treasury of Animal Stories by Igloo Books – this book is obviously aimed at very young children. Again, I was interested in how the animals have been placed on the cover, surrounding the text in a visually pleasing way.

The Amazing Animal Atlas by Gaia Bordicchia and Nick Crumpton – I felt this was a typical reference book cover design, with realistic illustrations and an educational tone.

Animals Around the World (Lift the Flap (Kingfisher)) by Deborah Chancellor (Author) and Anthony Lewis (Illustrator – I was not that keen on the style of this cover, but I noted the use of bright colours, the combination of various animals and the placement of the ‘world’ instead of the letter O.

What Pandas Do When No One’s Looking (and other nonsense): insights from the animal world! by K. J. Hobart – apart from the brown background colour (I really do not like the colour brown in most cases and I did not think it goes with the light blue font colour), this book cover is one that would have appealed to me when I was younger and still does. I liked the humour of the title and character, which I felt would draw a child towards it and make them more likely to want to read further.

I also created a Pinterest board with some examples of children’s book cover illustrations and stylised animal design aimed at a younger audience.

Mind-Mapping and Thumbnails

Next I moved onto drawing a mind-map of my initial thoughts and ideas.

Mind map of initial ideas and thoughts (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)

I had decided I wanted to try and include some humour in the cover design and I not a skilled enough illustrator to make truly representative depictions of wildlife so I would create simplified versions.

I drew out some very rough ideas as sketches and thumbnails. My first thoughts included the animals interweaving with the text or having various animals positioned around the edge of the composition looking in on the text.

Some initial, very rough ideas (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)

As I continued exploring ideas, I considered having a ‘frankenstein’ style creature on the cover, made up of different animal parts; a dung beetle rolling a globe; a catwalk with various animals parading along it it. I also thought about having a different animal holding up a placard with a letter from the title text on it.

Some initial, very rough ideas (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)

I was not expecting to find it so challenging to come up with ideas for this exercise and as I moved onto sketching some rough thumbnails, I was feeling quite demotivated and uninspired.

Thumbnails of Ideas (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)
Thumbnails of ideas (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)

One idea that I thought had some potential was having a chameleon with the world map covering its body.

Thumbnail of chameleon idea (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)

I also liked the idea of a sloth sleeping and hanging over the title text.

Sketch of sloth (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)

I moved onto making some neater, coloured thumbnails of some possible ideas.

Colour thumbnails of ideas (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)
Colour thumbnail of idea (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab)

Chosen Ideas

The three ideas I eventually decided on were:

World Map on Chameleon – this was the first idea that I had any real confidence in being able to create.

Sloth Asleep on Title Text Box – alongside the sloth I would add other various animals into the composition. I liked the idea of the animals interacting with the text on the cover.

Cheetah Running on Spinning Globe – I thought this would just be quite visually interesting.

I decided to make my cover designs square in format.

Idea 1 – World Map on Chameleon

Using reference images from a Google Image search and working in Illustrator, the process of creating a colour visual of the first cover design can be seen below.

Process of creating cover design idea 01

I quite liked the simplicity of this design and thought it would be fairly eye-catching. I was not sure about the background colour.

Idea 2 – Sloth Asleep on Title Box

Using reference images from a Google Image search and working in Illustrator, the process of creating a colour visual of the second cover design can be seen below.

Process of creating cover design idea 02

This cover design took a great deal of time to make the animals look ‘right’ and I was not happy with the sloth in the end (!). I felt it was quite a good idea, but would have probably benefited from more animals and brighter colours.

Idea 3 – Cheetah Running on Spinning Globe

This idea never really got going as I had drawn the outline of the cheetah and then Illustrator decided to crash and would not recover the file. I took the decision due to time constraint to go for a more graphical, text-based idea instead, which can be seen below. I was actually quite pleased with this design.

Revised Idea 03

Final Colour Visuals

The final colour visuals can be seen below (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab).

Final Thoughts

I had a few technical setbacks with this exercise, my computer broke down twice and Illustrator crashed, as previously described. This meant it took up much more time than I had planned for. I was also a bit unclear in terms of what was required for a ‘colour visual’. I went with the idea that it was not a finished design, but more of a coloured draft so the client has an idea of what the final design would look like. I, therefore, did not add all the details or tidied up as I would have done for finished versions.

I felt all of the final designs had potential and if I had more time I would be able to improve on them a great deal.

Reflection After Tutor Feedback

I decided to return to this exercise and develop the ‘animal O mouth’ design further. I removed the black outline from the mouth and then, following my tutor’s suggestion to incorporate further animal elements, added a simple animal print in the background. I thought the result, as below, was a definite improvement on the original and it looked more visually complete.

Revised version of book cover (click on image for larger version, opens in new tab).

References

Amazon, (n.d.). Animals Around the World (Lift the Flap (Kingfisher)) by Deborah Chancellor. [online] Amazon UK. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Animals-Around-World-Lift-Kingfisher/dp/0753463938 [Accessed 31 October 2020].

Amazon, (n.d.). What Pandas Do When No One’s Looking (and other nonsense): insights from the animal world!. [online] Amazon UK. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Pandas-Looking-other-nonsense/dp/1838035958 [Accessed 31 October 2020].

AnimalSake, (n.d.). A Complete List of National Animals from Around the World. [online] AnimalSake. Available at: https://animalsake.com/list-of-national-animals-around-world [Accessed 1 November 2020].

BBC, (n.d.). Animals- KS2 The World Around Us – BBC Bitesize. [online] BBC Bitesize. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z484382 [Accessed 1 November 2020].

Booktopia, (n.d.). Seek and Find, Animals around the World by Aubry Cohen. [online] Booktopia. Available at: https://www.booktopia.com.au/seek-and-find-aubry-cohen/book/9782733843284.html [Accessed 31 October 2020].

Bright Children’s Authors & Illustrators, (n.d.). Our Artists. [online] The Bright Agency. Available at: https://thebrightagency.com/uk/publishing/artists [Accessed 30 October 2020].

Chapman, C (2010). From A Childs View: 30+ Creative Children’s Book Covers. [online] EnvatoTuts+. Available at: https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/from-a-childs-view-30-creative-childrens-book-covers–vector-3687 [Accessed 24 October 2020].

Faris, S (2017). How to break into children’s book illustrating. [online] 99Designs. Available at: https://99designs.co.uk/blog/freelancing/childrens-book-illustrating/ [Accessed 24 October 2020].

Flying Eye Books, (n.d.). The Amazing Animal Atlas by Gaia Bordicchia and Nick Crumpton. [online] Flying Eye Books. Available at: https://flyingeyebooks.com/shop/the-amazing-animal-atlas/ [Accessed 31 October 2020].

Google Image, (n.d.). Google Image Search. [online] Available at: https://images.google.com/ [Accessed on various dates].

InDesignSkills, (2016). The Most Stylish Children’s Book Designs. [online] InDesignSkills. Available at: https://indesignskills.com/inspiration/childrens-book-illustration/ [Accessed 24 October 2020].

Instagram, (n.d.). Daniel Riley. [online] Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/daniel_rieley/ [Accessed 30 October 2020].

Safstrom, M (n.d.). Work. [online] Available at: http://majasbok.com [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Sfia, M (2017). Interview With Maja Säfström: Drawing animals gives you so much freedom. [online] Talk Illustration. Available at: https://talkillustration.com/interview-maja-safstrom-drawing-animals-gives-much-freedom/ [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Simon & Schuster, (n.d.). My First Treasury of Animal Stories by Igloo Books. [online] Simon & Schuster. Available at: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/My-First-Treasury-of-Animal-Stories/IglooBooks/9781499880380 [Accessed 31 October 2020].

Slater, K (n.d.). Portfolio Website. [online] Kate Slater Illustration. Available at: http://www.kateslaterillustration.com [Accessed 30 October 2020].

Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, (n.d.). Illustrator Gallery. [online] Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Available at: https://www.scbwi.org/illustrator-gallery/ [Accessed 30 October 2020].

Twinkl, (n.d.). World Map Animal Habitat Display Poster for Teachers. [online] Available at: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t2-g-439-world-map-animal-habitat-display-poster-display-poster [Accessed 29 October 2020].

Usborne, (n.d.). Big Book of Animals. [online] Available at: https://usborne.com/gb/browse-books/catalogue/product/1/11544/big-book-of-animals/ [Accessed 29 October 2020].