Inspired By Graphic Design Words and Images Chiara Bullo Btec Lev 3 – Graphic Design

For my final project I decided to create a children illustration book, the title of my book will be “A tale of Love and Time”. I didn’t personally write the story and unfortunately the source is unknown. What I’m going to produce is a 20 pages (excluding the cover) color e-book, size 18×18 cm (7×7 inches). I’m going to use Adobe InDesign for the layout and Adobe Illustrator for making the illustration. The tale is a short story about the feelings and it is going to be a moral story more than an educational one. I will create simple and colorful design since I noticed from my research that it is the most effective one especially making a children book. My target will be children from 4 years but also parents, the book will promote the value of the feelings and the importance of altruism. As I told before I’m going to use Adobe software for this project but before I’m going to make a storyboard and sketches using a notebook and pencils. My general idea it is not to draw “real” characters but use typography to represent the different word such as “LOVE” “TIME” etc. I would also consider the possibility of using different kind of paper or textureon my background. Regarding the text I’m not going to create my own font but I will try to handwrite it and scan it. I will produce a paper draft using text weight paper and a rough binding. I’m not sure I will be able to get my book printed for the final term so I will produce a.pdf file from InDesign and I will create the e-book (eventually an e-book readable on Ipad and Iphone) through blurb.com. I will consider the possibility of having my book printed on request.

I made a moodboard for my book and I used it to inspire myself especially with colors and elements

- I split the story in paragraph in order to have a general idea of how many pages and how the illustration is going to be. - I created a rough storyboard designing characters and background - I started transferring my idea on Adobe Illustrator

- I used fonts to create my characters > creating outline > modifying the font to resemble them like “real characters” - I used real texture for the sand and rocks as well for the sky, this allowed me to don’t get a “dull” effect - I applied several different effect, like shadows, blur, mesh tool or gradient to get a more realistic effect.

- I installed the blurb plug in and I imported my illustration on the right side - My initial idea was of handwriting the text, but I soon discovered that my calligraphy was barely readable. - I used “Beautiful every time” font which is an “handwriting” style font

- I designed the cover using the blurb template, unfortunately my book is going to be only 20 pages and there wasn’t enough space for customizing the spine. - Once my designed was finished I was ready to import it in the Blurb website in order to get my book and eventually have it printed

Unfortunately using the Blurb web interface has not been so easy. Despite using the proper templates something went wrong and I was unable to upload my files on the the web interface. So I used another online service provided by blurb named “Bookify Online” which allowed me to get my book properly paged. The only thing is that I had to transform my pdf file to a high resolution Jpeg.

I have to say I’m pretty happy with my book. After getting my book printed, I found several errors due to lack of time and attention. Some of the paragraph are badly paged and there are some mistakes in the illustration ( the word “love” in the second illustration has not arms, and the word “Time” in the second last illustration has an incomplete “E”). The cover may doesn’t reflect the illustration style and I think this could be an advantage in some sense, how many of us are attracted from very colorful and appealing cover...to find out later than the book it was not so good in the end?! Just because you cannot read a whole book in a shop, the cover and the abstract on the back are sometimes the best way to sell a book. In the beginning I had trouble finding a story to illustrate, I would have write one but my imagination was at the lowest level ever. When I found out the story I immediately understood that could have been the right one. It was simple enough to read it to a baby and it included different characters which allowed me to create different illustrations. Unfortunately I’m not very good in drawing but I wanted to create a peculiar illustration. I thought, how can I depict “Love” or “Vanity”, they could have been in shape of real person but then I thought that using the “words” instead that characters would help me to get a nice interesting effect...and most of all has compensated my lack of ability in illustration and has reduced the time of making the book. In my first draft I used flat color but after getting a very dull effect, I decided to insert real texture to give a “move” at the images (I used real sand, rock, sky and water). As said previously in my presentation I tried to personally “handwrite” the text, but in the end my calligraphy was hard to understand, especially for a child. I decided to apply a “handwriting” style font which I

think match perfectly with the illustration style. I think the illustration could have been improved in different ways: I could have added more particulars or paid more attention to proportions and background. In the end, I think that a children’s book shouldn’t be so “perfect”, I think that a children’s book should “stimulate” the imagination and the children will turn a simple line in a fairy tale. The story itself is brilliant and wants to be a moral story (like Esopo’s tales) and just because it is about feelings it is not only suitable for children but also for parents. I’d like to explore more the world of illustration in future, experimenting with traditional and contemporary techniques, exploring character development, narrative and composition. I’d also really like learn how to use the graphic tablet and eventually how to digitally paint the illustrations. At the end, I’m quite happy with my book and I think that each book is different. Some of them come easily, and some of them are very difficult to bring to completion and this book, for me, has been the baptism of fire.