Unit 12.1 – Publication Design. – Leanne Hooft's Blog

Project Brief:

I am working for Bloomsbury. They offer me the chance to work on publishing a new concept for a children’s book. I need to choose an age range of 0 – 5, 5 – 7, 7 – 9 or 9 – 11. I will then create a story, illustrate it and produce a small printed proof of concept book.

Bloomsbury:

Homepage:

About Bloomsbury:

Bloomsbury were established in 1986, they are a famous publishing company with establishments all over the world including: London, Oxford, New York, Sydney and New Delhi. The agency is all about the publication of different books, which has led them to get nominated for multiple publishing awards, including: the ‘Publishing Group Award’, the ‘British Book Awards’, and the ‘Children’s Publisher of the Year 2018 Award’.

Along side the nominations, Bloomsbury are also famous due to the authors they work with, some well-known Authors include: J.K Rowling and Sarah J. Mass. Furthermore, Bloomsbury have also worked with award winning (including the Nobel and Bookers Prizes’) authors, and they were also the original publishing agency for The Harry Potter series. So they are definitely a well known, trusted company.

The company publish over 1400 books a year which means, over the years, they have accounted for thousands of publications, which allow them to develop further as a company because they are able to get their name out there and present to more people. Which benefits them as it’s only going to make them grow as they cover more of the world.

As you can see by the screenshot above, the company have a section on their website which tells their audience all about them, which is where I gathered all the previous information. In order to be a successful company I feel as if this is a really important factor within your website, therefore you can begin to create a bond between your company and your audience. The trust which is created is essential as it’s what builds up your company, without any interactions with your audience there is no way you will be able to create products that people will use and enjoy. So seeing this factor on their websites educates me on who they are and what they do meaning I can gather information to see if this company would be suitable for me to use myself.

‘Further Information’ Section:

Another feature that I like about their website is the fact that if you want to find out more about the company and go into more depth about who they are and what they do then you can. This is due to the fact that they have a, ‘further information’ section (picture displayed above), where you will find their neighbouring websites which hold details about different factors that make up the company as a whole. The fact that you can find out more about them suggests that they genuinely care for their audience, as Bloomsbury are willing to give away every detail of themselves.

Going back to our project brief I know that I need to create a children’s book, so I decided to look into their ‘children’s’ region:

Children’s Region:

As you can see in the image above, Bloomsbury dedicates a section of their website to their children’s books. This section speaks about some of the book series that they have published, including the ‘Witch Wars’. This section also speaks about some of the authors that they have worked with, (list of authors can be read in the screen-shotted section imported onto this page). Another feature that enhances the company is the fact that they have separate ‘sub-sections’ for different age ranges (found on the left hand side). This is beneficial to their websites users as it narrows down our searches so we can easily find what we were looking for.

Additionally, Bloomsbury also have pictures of some of the books that they have published, this visual confirmation of recognisable books also helps us, as users, trust the company because we are able to see evidence which backs up the information that we were previously reading. Allowing us to believe their views and speeches.

I decided to look further into this company by choosing one of their ‘sub-sections’:

Specific Age Group:

I wanted to look into this age range (7-9) so I could begin to gather some knowledge as to what these ages like and the best-selling and most popular books, as this will help me when I go to design my book. In this section of Bloomsbury there are many videos of different authors and illustrators, this shows me a background to how Bloomsbury partnered with these companies and it allows me to create connections between faces of authors and their books. I found this educational as I learnt what I need to look into when researching existing children’s books including: book covers, what illustrations to use, colours I should think about and storylines. I gathered this all from just looking at the latest releases and seeing what initially jumps out to me as things I should look into further.

Conclusion:

As an audience member I feel like I am able to trust this company because I was able to learn so much about them and what their morals are all due to their simple yet effective layout of their website. Now I have looked in-depth into Bloomsbury I think I am ready to progress onto the next section and begin to decide who my audience should be.

My Audience:

I believe it’s important to find out who my audience should be before I start analysing existing books because I want to analyse relevant books; this will enhance my knowledge as I will learn more about that specific age range. So in order to find out which age range I should decide upon I am briefly going to discuss some factors which differ between the groups.

In my opinion, mind-maps are a great way to easily display information and views as it’s layout is visually appealing and easy-to-read. It also allows me to further express my thoughts as I am able to delve deeper into each range as my mind flows whilst creating these mind-maps:

Audience Mind-map:

Producing this mind-map allowed me to explore the ranges in more depth. It also allowed me to understand which groups that I want to steer away from, including: 0-5 years and 9-11 years.

I’ve decided that I’m not produce a book for the 0-5 year old range because I feel as if it is too vast, there are many things that a 4 year old will understand compared to what a 1 year old will understand, so it will be difficult to find a book that balances between the 5 years. Furthermore, this age range doesn’t fully understand a story, they don’t grasp onto the fact that there should be a beginning, middle and end, with characters and a point. In order to benefit myself, I wanted to create a book with a full functioning story as I believe this will help me as a graphic designer as I can enhance my knowledge by learning another area within this media. Hence why this age range is just not suitable for what I want to create.

Additionally, this mind-map led me to understand that I do not want to focus on the age range of 9-11 years. My reasoning being that these years are too advanced for what I want to create, similar to what I previously stated, I want to enhance my graphic designing abilities, so I want to produce a story which also has illustrations. Although there could still be pictures in a book for this range, I feel like I could be more creative with the illustrations for a younger audience as they will have a wider imagination, allowing me to be very free with my illustrations. Also due to timing limitations, I feel like I will be able to create a shorter book for younger audiences as 9-11 year olds will want more of a book to read and I do not think I have enough time to complete a substantial book for that age range.

So now I need to decide between the two remaining age groups: 5-7 years and 7-9 years. In order to help me make a decision between these two groups I am going to look into each of them further by researching more about the ages:

5-7 Year Old’s:

At 5 years old children will begin to have an understanding upon shapes, colour, reading, writing, numbers etc.. Meaning they’re all still very new to basic education. However when comparing this to a 7 year old, who can fully count, read, write, distinguish colours there is a massive jump. Designing and creating a book for 5-7 year olds will be quite complex as there is a vast difference between what a 5 year old and a 7 year old will be able to understand. So getting that mixture between the two and creating a book which all the ages will be able to understand and enjoy may be difficult.

With 7 year olds they are able to understand emotions and grasp onto social situations, this allows them to understand more developed and intellectual stories. Writing a story that is meaningful is more intriguing and interesting to me than writing a basic ‘number’ or ‘alphabet’ book. So this is steering me more onto the pathway of designing a book for the range of 7-9 year olds.

7-9 Year Old’s:

I believe that a 7 year old is more mentally similar to a 9 year old than a 5 year old. This leads me to think that for me to make a story that will actually entertain and change someone, it will be best to choose this range as I think that 7, 8 and 9 year old will all find the same things fun, funny, cool etc.. So I have no doubt that my book will be interesting for everyone that falls under this range, and I just want as much people to enjoy my book as possible.

My mind-maps and further analysis upon the age groups really aided me in coming to my final decision of my age range being 7-9 year olds. So now that I have come to a conclusion on who my audience is going to be, I will research this age range in a lot more detail, by looking into: that age range’s mannerisms, their education, their hobbies, their aspirations, existing authors for that age range etc… so then I can begin to understand what they’re like so I can then produce a relevant story.

My Age Range Research:

To begin with I decided to find what books are selling well for that particular age range. As I was researching some familiar authors popped up that I remember from when I was that age and when we had to read books at school. These include: Roald Dahl and David Walliams. I remember that the books had very weird and imaginative stories, they didn’t necessarily always make sense but that was okay because it was still entertaining to read. I also remember that there were loads of pictures and the books were full of colour, so I need to ensure that these elements will be reflected within my book.

For 7-9 year olds it’s very beneficial for there to be bright colour used within the book, the bright colours grab the readers attention and it allows them to connect with either the character or whatever is taking place within the story. This connection is essential for the child as it will provoke emotions of empathy, which means that the story is actually going to make them think and it will satisfy them in some way. The colour is also visually stimulating, which gets their minds working as they need to process the information.

The majority of stories for this age range are cartoon, this is because it’s easier for children to relate to these characters as they look more friendly and intriguing. Furthermore by the book being cartoon it allows the writer to be a lot more creative as you can play with shapes, sizes, colours etc.. Additionally, a cartoon story will entice children way more than a realistic book, as a realistic story may be quite boring for the child.

Children of this range will experience many new emotions including curiosity, as they will want to explore new things. So I want to create a story that will benefit the child either by clearing up curiosity of something they may have or by teaching them something new. Although there may be slight differences between what a 7 year old and what a 9 year old will be curious about, I need to try to find that balance and create a story that helps them both. To find this balance I am going to look into existing books for that range so I can see what the morals in those stories are; this may inspire me and gives me ideas for my own story.

Primary and Secondary Audience:

So my primary audience will obviously be 7-9 year olds, these will be first in mind when I’m creating and designing my book, however, my secondary audience is equally as important. I’m still designing my books for parents to buy, I want my cover to look appealing and enticing for the parent too as they’re going to be the ones buying the book for their child. So I need to keep this secondary audience in mind too.

I feel like to reach out to my secondary audience I will need to create a book that is going to make their child feel good in some sort of way. So then by their child reading the book it will be beneficial to the parent too as it will help their children develop and grow as a person.

Not only will I be designing my book for my primary and secondary audience, my book also may reach out to niche, which is an audience that I wouldn’t necessarily be designing my book for, but it may still appeal to them. For example: children’s book collectors. This doesn’t really impact me in a major way though as my priority is just my primary (children) and secondary (parents) audience.

To expand on my secondary audience, I will mainly be reaching out to the working/ middle class sector as, stereo-typically, they would read stories to their children. So I need to keep my book affordable so it can reach out to a wider audience as more people will purchase it; I can ensure this by using appropriate materials when constructing my book.

Another factor that I need to keep in mind when designing my book is that I use appropriate and relevant imagery throughout my illustrations. I aim for my book to only be available to buy in the UK as we have the same morals and principles throughout the country, opposed to other countries where people may get offended if some of the characters where to wear or say specific things. I feel like this is the safer route to take; especially for an amateur.

Existing Book Analysis:

Book 1:

Straight away this would look appealing to a child because it involves bright colours and funny images. Children are drawn to silly things so by there being animals with funny props within the cover make it stand out and make it enticing for the child. The 3 bullet points help to explain a bit about the book, this would also seem intriguing for the child as ‘muscle-shaking’ sounds fun. Additionally, the title would jump out at the children because it’s an alliteration, this makes it more memorable because children will be able to recall the book to their friends.

I enjoy the fact that the illustrations spread over a double page, I feel like this gives a large focus point for the children, this will, in-turn, make them want to carry on reading and listening to the story as the spreads are enjoyable to look at. It’s a shame that the illustrations aren’t in colour, however I believe this is due to the fact that they’re books to be used within a school, so it would be very expensive to print every book in colour.

This book is aimed for 7-9 year olds, I like the layout of the book- the writing cuts around the image which makes it easier to read. Not only that, but the choice of language used is very appropriate, the words are very relevant for that specific age group. As you can see the illustrations that are used are quite simple and basic, this is again due to the age range, keeping the illustrations simple will make it easier for children to understand. Furthermore, with simple cartoons, children that are reading it would be able to copy the drawings and learn some new skills this way.

Book 2:

Compared to the previous book, the cover on this one isn’t as appealing to me. The colours are too plain, it would be interesting to have some more detail within the background. However, the illustrator designed it this way for a purpose. With a plainer background it gets children to focus more on what is in the foreground, and in this case it’s the main character and the title of the book. Which can be a really beneficial attribute to have as it will allow the child to instantly create empathy towards that character.

This book is more of a story compared to the poem book, so it’s portrayed slightly differently. However, they still both include the same principles of writing and illustrations. Similar to the previous book, this book has double page spreads, which make it very fun for the children to read. Large illustrations also help the children understand the story more as it involves another one of their senses, this way they are able to interact with the book more.

It’s also very common for children’s books to include illustrations on only one of the 2 pages, this way they can verbally and visually engross you into the story. I prefer it when the pages are separated like this as sometimes it can be quite difficult to read the words correctly around the photo. Pictures are very important in a children’s book as it helps them learn because they can begin to visualise the story instead of just imagining it.

Book Research:

In order to create a story that is legible and enjoyable, I need to teach myself how to actually write a good story, and the elements I need to include within my book. I’m going to research steps of story writing, I will also read advice on how to specifically target story writing for children.

When writing my story I need to keep in mind the fact that I am writing for children, this means I need to use simple language techniques and not write my story too advanced otherwise they won’t be able to understand.

Above is a screenshot of a trusted website, it states that my book should have between 1000 and 3000 words (highlighted orange) and there needs to be illustrations on every page. Although this is only a rough guide, I still want to remain close to these boundaries as this is the average criteria for a good children’s book. So I now roughly know how much I should be writing and how many illustrations I should include.

How To Make my Book a Success:

Some important factors that I also need to take into consideration when creating my book is the fact that I need to make it appealing for not only children, but parents and teachers too; as most children’s books are not actually bought by children, so they need to be enticing for the buyer too.

For this age range it’s best to write the book in present tense so then it’s more enjoyable for the young reader as it will feel like they’re in the midst of the action. Children prefer seeing whats going on as it’s happening, opposed to talking about something in past tense. Furthermore, I believe that it’s more difficult to create a story in first person compared to third person. This is because you would really need to put yourself in that characters shoes instead of narrating a story where you don’t need to go into as much detail in regards to the characters feelings and emotions. In addition, it’s easier for a child to watch what’s going on and evaluate the situation that way, instead of reading it as if they’re actually in that current situation.

In order to make a successful book I should create action at the beginning of the story, this way I can grab my readers attention and hook them straight away, so then they need to keep reading in order to find out what’s happened. I should involve likeable, relatable characters of which the child can learn to feel empathy towards, this way the book is actually enjoyable to read as the reader will begin to care for the characters. My story should definitely have a story line which involves a clear beginning, middle and end with suspense and action throughout. Furthermore, due to my audience, I believe that it’s best to finish with a happy ending, as I do not want children to be put off reading any more books in the future.

Layouts of Books:

There are a few different ways of which I could format my book. How the book is laid out will affect the readers overall experience, so it’s important to get it right.

Although there are many different layouts, above is a picture of three variates of formats. Out of these three formats I do like the idea of the horizontal one, as it makes the story flow. However, I am not deciding upon the format of my book just yet, as I do not want to restrict myself of any potential ideas. As I am involving a lot of pictures within my book it’s important that I chose the correct format as I need to leave enough space for both the text and the illustrations.

I now have a slightly better understanding of what I need to create and what I need to involve within my book to make it a success. I will now begin to research artists to see if I can gain any inspiration for my book from them.

Narrative Design:

In order to write a successful book I need to further look into the elements of what should be included within a story and what the building blocks of a story are.

As a class we decided to research these elements together, including: Archetypes, Setting Archetypes, Image Archetypes, Situational Archetypes and different methods of narrative design. Below are some images of the work I completed:

Character Analysis:

In order to fully understand some archetypes, we decided to break them down into two different elements of physical and mental with sub categories of appearance, emotions, needs and wants:

Artist Research:

Liz Pichon:

Liz is a children’s author and illustrator. I’ve decided to research her because I feel as if her work is relevant, so whilst analysing her work I can also gain inspiration that I may be able to put towards my final idea.

The two books shown instantly intrigue me as they’re bright, bold and different. The abstract shapes of the blue and black is very intense as it makes me wonder the reasoning behind why she chose to create these shapes. Overall neither of the covers make sense. There are random animals and monsters dotted around the page, saying random sentences, this leaves me quite confused as I wonder why they’re there, however this is going to appeal to a younger audience as the children will just see the colours, shapes and animals and be in awe of what the book is about.

Liz lives in Brighton and she has 3 children. She studied graphic design at school which led her to become a freelance graphic designer, and not only this, but she also dabbled in the music industry as an art director.

Jacqueline Wilson:

Jacqueline was born in 1945 in Bath, however she moved to Kingston and she continued to live there her whole life. Her father died young and she didn’t have any siblings, so for a long time it was just her and her mother until she had her daughter Emma. In school Jacqueline loved english and art, even from a very young age Jacqueline knew that she wanted to be a writer. She was always intrigued with story telling as she read many books in her early years. As she became older she fell into journalism, this is where she would write articles for a magazine: ‘Jackie Magazine’, she was only a teenager when she was writing for this company.

The Story of Tracey Beaker is what Jacqueline is mainly recognised for. This series really made her take off as the series won and got nominated for several awards including the 2002 Blue Peter People’s Choice Award. This led to her becoming one of the nations favourite children’s author as she has sold over 40 million books.

Most of Jacqueline’s books are all based on fiction, she prefers to create the characters from scratch as she can then design and develop them however she would like. I believe it’s harder to write a story based on facts because then you are some-what restricted into what you can produce, as there’s almost reigns holding you back. So she inspired me to really delve into my imagination and create creative fiction stories as these have no limitations.

Initial Story Ideas:

Mind-Map:

I decided to create a mind-map of initial story ideas that I had, I feel like creating a mind-map helps me to develop brief ideas into concrete ones as different ideas stem from others. From creating this mind-map I think I am going to steer towards the idea of creating a story either using an insect as the main character, or an inanimate object.

Developed Story Ideas:

‘Worm Story idea’:

So I had the idea to create a story with a worm being the main character. I chose a worm because I thought that it was an insect that every child would know, therefore the children will be able to relate to the story as they see something familiar. I tried to think of ideas based upon a worm, I had some ideas such as: ‘Worm goes to the City’, or how the worm could turn into a giant monster. However as time went on I began to realise that there isn’t necessarily enough time to create a full story with complete illustrations with an actual story structure; not for me anyway. I like to take my time with work as I want it to be good quality, so I think it’s best for me to steer away from having a full story line.

This is where I carried on brain-storming about what I could produce for my book. Still thinking along the lines of basing it upon a worm, I thought I could create an educational book. So each page there would be the worm performing a different action, for example: there would be a worm in an apple on one page and then on the second page it would say, “did you eat fruit today?”, then the next page there would be a worm with a skipping rope and the following page would say, “did you exercise today?”. So the idea of the book is to encourage children to have a healthy lifestyle through the form of a friendly worm.

Initial Drawings of Worm:

Developed Illustrations of Worm:

I started to produce illustrations upon this idea:

As I began to develop this idea, I was having doubts on whether or not children would even find this book entertaining. Although I liked the concept of this idea I wasn’t completely satisfied with the actual idea itself. I like the idea of writing an educational and informative book opposed to a story book, I feel like they’re beneficial to the child, and they also might be more appealing to my secondary target audience of parents or guardians.

Mind-map of New Ideas:

I decided to create a mind-map of new ideas for my book, I thought of all the different things that I could actually educate children upon (listed above in pink). I still like the idea of encouraging a healthy lifestyle, so I definitely think I’m going to sway in this direction.

I also spoke about combining both an educational story and an interactive story to create a story with a moral, however, thinking about my target audience, I think this would be way too complicated for the majority to understand.

So from creating my mind-map I know I am going to create an educational book. As I think this is very appropriate for my target audience.

Healthy Eating Idea:

My favourite idea is probably to encourage children to eat more fruit and vegetables. I feel like now-a-days children are eating more and more processed, unhealthy foods, purely because more is being produced and promoted in stores. So I want to teach children that fruit and vegetables can actually taste nice and show them how beneficial they are. My idea would be that there is a different fruit or vegetable on each page and it would literally just inform children upon what they are.

Or to develop this idea, I could make the story more interactive. So I could introduce unhealthy foods too, like sweets and chocolate, and the there could be a rivalry between the two groups, and in the end fruit and vegetables would win. Portraying that these foods are better and stronger, hopefully subliminally pushing children to choose a healthy option over sweets or chocolate because they’re better for us. By a rivalry I mean something along the lines a tug-of-war, so it’s still playful and so it’s not promoting any form of violence.

New Target Audience:

As I was developing my fruit and vegetable idea I came to the conclusion that my book was going to be quite basic for my original target audience of 7-9 year olds. I feel like that age group needs a developed story with multiple characters and a plot. So I understand that my book wasn’t going to be appropriate for this range. Therefore I am going to change my target audience from 7-9 to 0-5 year olds. Despite my negative comments that I made previously in my blog- in regards to the fact that this age range is too vast- I think that this book will be suitable for all ages between 0 and 5 because although 1 year olds will not be able to read, they can still look at the colours and pictures. I feel happier that I’ve changed my target audience because I believe my book will now be suitable.

I am set on including fruit and vegetables within my book, however my idea may still adapt slightly as I begin to develop this idea further. Next I need to research what pages I should actually include within my book.

Book Necessities (Beginning):

In order to make my book professional, I want to ensure that I include the correct pages. So I chose a book and I took some photos of the first few pages:

Book One:

This allows me to get a rough understanding of what pages I need to include within my book. From this example, I can see that I need:

A title page,
An ‘established’ page,
A contents page,
A ‘summary’ page,
An introductory page.

In order to see if these were essential, I looked at the first few pages of another book too, so then I can compare them:

Book Two:

As you can see, there are some similarities. There is still: a title page, an ‘established’ page, a contents page, a ‘summary’ page and an introductory page; so from conducting this research I can see that I definitely need to include these 4 pages within my book.

I conducted some research and I learnt that these first pages of the book is called the ‘front matter’. So my front matter will consist of:

Front Cover:

The front cover is a very important factor when creating a book, it’s what draws in the readers. It’s the first thing of which they will place their judgement upon, so it needs to be enticing. To make it enticing I should involve bright colours and bold text, especially because my target audience is so young, the bold words will catch their attention.

I thought about what I could possibly name my book, I had multiple different ideas:

However I decided to go for the idea of ‘Spellings, Colours & More!’, I believe this title involves every aspect of my book, it’s obvious what the book is about and it’s not giving any false ideas to my buyers- this is important because I don’t want to mislead anyone. I then decided to draw some different ways of which I could present my front cover:

Initial Ideas:

I like the use of ‘&’ instead of ‘and’ because I feel like it softens the overall cover, it doesn’t look as professional which may be appealing for my target audience because they will perceive the book as more fun. I also enjoy the aspect of having the images of fruit and vegetables on the cover because in the title it doesn’t necessarily imply that it involves fruit and veg, so having this imagery will portray to my audience that: ‘& more!’ links to this. The fourth idea is my favourite, I like how the words almost create a circle, I believe this aesthetic is very visually appealing, I feel like, again it will be attractive for my audience because the curves create a soft and playful ambience for the book. So I will now develop this idea further.

Developed Ideas:

I like the fact that ‘colours’ is in colour, as I previously mentioned, the title needs to be bold, I believe that by having this specific aspect in colour, it allows the cover to be really eye-catching, which will lead to more buyers as they are intrigued by the book. I now need to develop this idea on Illustrator:

I played around with different sizes for the word ‘colours’, after doing this I think I prefer it when the word is larger as I think it is more eye-catching, especially for my young target audience. I think I may need to add a black stroke around the word ‘colours’ if I was to have coloured background, just to make it really pop.

I decided to make the words look more rounded, and to aid me with this I put a circle around the words to get them more uniformed:

I also involved no uppercase letters, I thought this would make it look more delicate and enticing for the younger readers. I am now happy with the placement of my title.

I now need to decide upon a background colour for my book, I need one that will compliment the colours in the word ‘colour’:

I feel like having a pastel colour as the background is a good idea, this is because it’s not going to clash with any of the existing colours, furthermore pastel colours are very soft and inviting, making it perfect for my target audience. Stereotypically, pink is for girls and blue is for boys, I want my book to be unisex so I think I will choose a gender neutral colour; for example beige.

Final Idea:

I am pleased with my front cover, I now need to move on to developing the pages that will exist within my book.

Title Page:

This page is basically the front cover again but with less detail. It’s an important factor within a book, this is because it shows the official beginning of the book, it also reiterates the name of the book for the reader. It’s essential to include a title page, here are some initial designs:

Initial Designs:

Developed Designs:

The title page is really just a less developed version of the front cover, so I decided to just take away the fruit and vegetables and just put the title in the centre of the page.

In order to get the title in the centre I used rectangles to block out the same distance from the top and bottom.

I feel like there still needs to be a background colour to the page, however I feel like this doesn’t need to stand out as much as the other pages because the children wouldn’t read these pages, they would be more for the adults, so I might just use a plain background for these pages.

Final Design:

I like how this page is set out as it is quite basic, which is what it should be, I feel like I am set on this aesthetic for the page.

“Established” Page:

After some further research that I conducted, I realised that this page is actually a copyright page. So it needs to include a copyright notice, the copyright owner, the year of publication, disclaimers and acknowledgments. Not all of these are essential, but they should be included.

Initial Designs:

I decided to draw out roughly what I think this page should look like; I used other childrens books for inspiration. I feel like this includes everything it needs to as it includes important information about me and about copyright. I will next start to develop this page on Illustrator.

Developed Designs:

As you can see, I was playing around with different placements of the words on this page. I also wanted to include different decorative pieces (the lines and curved line) to make the page look more professional, as this will intrigue my secondary audience as the book will look familiar to others they’ve used in the past. People like familiarity as it gives them a sense of comfort as they’re in their territory.

I still wanted to give this page a title so I decided to call this page ‘introductory’ as I thought it was better than calling it ‘copyright page’. I now need to finalise this page.

Final Designs:

Contents Page:

Although a contents page for a normal book would be essential, for my book I’m not going to include one. Purely because my book doesn’t have specific chapters, furthermore, my book is going to have around roughly 20 pages, so it’s a very short book which is going to be very easy to navigate around.

‘Summary’ Page:

Again, after more research I have realised that this page is actually called the ‘preface’. This page is written to give the reader some insight into why the book was written, the preface is written by the author.

Initial Designs:

I wrote a list upon what I thought should be included within this page, I gathered this information by looking at existing books and getting inspiration from them. I want to write a short message as to why I wrote this book, just to inform my audience upon this books purpose.

Developed Designs:

Similar to the copyright page, I played around with adding different curved and straight lines, just to add detail to the pages so they’re more intriguing. Within the message I briefly spoke about my aims for writing this book, and it’s purpose. I didn’t want to include too much detail because I didn’t want to make it really long where I know people would just skim read over it, with a shorter message people are more likely going to read it.

Final Designs:

Introductory Page:

This sets the reader up for the book, it gives them more insight into the book, and maybe some details that the reader needs to be aware of before they start reading. Applying this to my book, I might not need one because my book is going to be quite short. In addition, there isn’t a story to my book, it’s mainly facts. Especially because my target audience is so young, they wouldn’t even be able to understand what the introductory page is for.

Initial Page Ideas:

I decided just to draw some different fruits and vegetables that I knew I wanted to include within my book. These are just rough drawings which I will then develop later with colour and more detail. However, I do not want to add too much detail to the point where the foods will look really realistic, I still want to keep and ‘animated’ theme because of my target audience:

Developed Page Ideas:

I was struggling to think of how many pages I should have in my book, that’s when I came up with the idea of having a ‘rainbow’ theme to my book. This will also make it more fun and interactive for the child. By this I mean involve the most dominant colours, these include: green, red, yellow, blue, purple, pink and orange. So my idea was to have one fruit and one vegetable for each of those 7 colours; leaving me with 14 ‘main’ pages. I feel like this is a good amount of pages as it’s not too long where the child would then begin to feel bored.

So the order of the colours would be:

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink.

For the vegetables I can have: Pepper, Carrot, Corn, Broccoli, Eggplant, Purple Cabbage, Beetroot.

For the fruit I can have: Cherries, Orange, Bananas, Apple, Blueberries, Grapes, Raspberries.

As I started to create the different foods on Illustrator I wanted to try out different ways that I could present it to the child. By this I mean if I should animate the vegetables to make them look more inviting for the child, or if I should keep them realistic.

To make it look animated I added some cartoon eyes, as soon as I put them on I decided that I definitely prefer the veg without eyes, especially because the carrot looked quite realistic before, so from here on I am just going to create the foods without any cartoon effects. Next I am going to chose my specific typeface suitable for my target audience.

Typeface:

This is an extremely important factor for any book. If I was writing out a whole story it would be easier to choose as I would probably stick to the standard typeface of Times New Roman. This typeface is very easy to read, especially due to it’s sans serif properties. I’m baring this in mind as I, obviously, want my writing to be easy to read because of my extremely young target audience.

I know I want my typeface to be sans serif, I also want it to have soft curves as I feel like this is more appealing because it’s not as harsh as letters with very pointed or straight edges. It will also give the book a more animated effect because the letters may represent things such as bubbles.

So to look into different typefaces I will just experiment with them within Illustrator:

I picked out 7 different types of typefaces that I liked. Looking back at them now I can see that some of the may not be suitable. Although I like the aesthetic of: 3, 5 and 6 I think they represent normal handwriting too much, it also looks quite informal, I want a typeface that looks more professional. Which brings me on to: 1 and 7, I think these are a bit too formal, just because my target audience is so young. Out of 2 and 4 I prefer 2 because 4 may be quite difficult to read for some users as the letters are very thin. So I am going to choose number 2, Comic Sans, as my final typeface.

Developed Page Ideas (continued):

I started to produce my pages on Illustrator, as I was creating them I started to think more in depth about my idea, I looked back at my ‘new ideas’ mind-map, and saw that I wrote down an idea of involving spellings in the book. I thought about this more and realised that I could actually use this idea. As I am including the name of the food anyway, I should write it in such a way where the child would be able to break down the word and sound it out so they could learn how to pronounce and spell it themselves.

I spoke to my friends and family and I asked them which out of the above 3 they believe would be the most suitable, the majority said the third option, which I agreed with anyway. In my opinion, the third is the best because the hyphen will allow my users to realise that this is a spelling book, and that the hyphens are there to aid them by obviously splitting each letter apart. I will now continue to create my pages.

There are a few issues that I have noticed whilst creating my designs. One would be the size of the words. I want the words to fill the page from left to right so then there’s not as much empty space, however, this is quite difficult to do for the shorter words:

You can see that the word ‘corn’ looks very lost on this page. I set all of the words at size 55pt and height 70pt, which works for the longer words but not the shorter words.

I decided to increase the height and width of the smaller words but still keeping them the same size:

I am now pleased with how the size of the smaller words look. I just need to ensure that the words are the same distance away from the bottom of the page so they’re consistent throughout my book. To do this, I came up with the method of creating a box and putting this box in the same position on every page, so then if I was to put the word on-top of the box, the word would then be in the same place on every page:

Now that I am happy with my word placement, I need to ensure that the foods are in the same place on every page as best I can, (obviously they’re different shapes so it’s going to be averaged). I used the same method:

Now that my pages are coming together, I need to continue to research what other pages I should put into my book.

Book Necessities (End):

Again, I decided to conduct some primary research and look at the end pages of different books. This is so I know what to include within mine: