Saturday, 28 April 2012

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Children's Book Covers.



Doing some more research in the way of children's book cover designs, potentially to inspire some more ideas for my own design developments (of which will shortly be available on my Design Practice blog) in the way of typographic/illustrative designs for the cover of my Grimm's Fairy Tale rebrand design for Penguin/Puffin. 


Below, a few of my favourite examples on Behance found today, with links to the designers and a brief insight into their work and aspects of the designs which I particularly like.


http://www.behance.net/gallery/Dust-Jacket-If-You-Give-a-Mouse-a-Cookie/3700974


"If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"
Erin FitzPatrick
MA, USA


I love the simple, playful, typographic elements and the rich, ice cream colour palette used throughout this book design for 'If You Give A Mouse A Cookie' by Erin Fitzpatrick. A really minimal, yet eye-catching, illustrative design, that is sure to engage children, without looking at all garish or "in your face"- one of the biggest crimes against children's publishing and editorial design! Still a sophisticated, clean design whilst still being a lot of fun.



http://www.behance.net/gallery/20000-Leagues-Under-The-Sea/536751


20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea publication design
Aaron Bloom
Seattle, USA


Truly beautiful illustrative and typographic experiments throughout this publication design by Seattle-based Graphic Designer, Aaron Bloom. I love the contour-map style in the inside jacket cover of the book, which adds a really luxurious and sophisticated element to the design, along with the consistency it maintains with the rest of the design features throughout the book.
The bold, fineliner illustration designs also work wonderfully with the additional water colour texture to reflect the main themes and subject matters within the book- a great source of visual communication.




The Roald Dahl Collection
John Nguyen
NY, USA

Having previously blogged these designs for another project (I believe in my Book Works Image module?) I am still a huge fan of these consistent, creative designs for a series of Roald Dahl books, I believe to have been inspired around the time that the 2011 Penguin/Puffin competition brief was release to redesign the cover for Roald Dahl's classic, 'James and the Giant Peach', just as I have been inspired by the 2012 brief.
Great, minimal vector design with the added texture to give the designs even more life, character and design appeal.




James and the Giant Peach- Roald Dahl cover design

Charlotte Estelle Littlehales
Nottingham, United Kingdom

Another great design by Charlotte Estelle Littlehales (see my previous blog post for more information!) I love the way that gradients and subtle textures have been used to add life, character and depth to her design for the Penguin/Puffin live competition brief to re design the cover for Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach', as previously mentioned. 

Design Practice II//Product/Range/Distribution//Children's Editorial Illustration.


Doing a spot of research into children's editorial illustration (illustration FOR children that is...not by them...) as a source of inspiration into my own designs for the Product/Range/Distribution project, design developments and outcomes of which can be found on my Design Practice blog.


Below, a few of my favourite examples found on Behance today- some wonderful variation, and contexts/concepts very similar to my own, which will, undoubtedly, provide some great inspiration and ideas.





Charlotte Estelle Littlehales
Nottingham, United Kingdom


Charming design idea from the original Penguin/Puffin brief by Nottingham-based designer Charlotte Estelle Littlehales for the Grimm's Fairy Tales cover design brief. 
Although not my usual style, or one that I will be pursuing from quite a Graphic and uniformed design outlook, I really like Charlotte's very playful, illustrative designs which really capture the imagination and excitement that children so often get when reading or hearing the Grimm's Fairy Tales for the first time.
In addition to her cover illustrations, Charlotte also ties the design together with a paper craft cover, which adds an element of luxury to the design, and the glittery-red stock adding that little bit more magic and creativity to the design outcome.




Emma Hopkins
Bristol, United Kingdom

Key Stage 3 Work pack for 11-14 year olds.


As with all of Emma Hopkins' (a Bristol-based Graphic Designer) portfolio, I am a huge fan of one of her latest projects, 'Ratio', a Key Stage 3 work pack for 11-14 year olds, which acts to creatively engage older children with mathematical calculations.
With a fun, consistent, eye-catchingly bright design, Emma's designs are completely spot on- keeping it simple, yet completely effective.

 



http://www.behance.net/gallery/James-and-the-Giant-Peach/3712620


Joel Martin
Falmouth, United Kingdom


Again, I really love the combination of creativity and simplicity by Falmouth- based Graphic Designer Joel Martin in this 2011 Penguin/Puffin brief in which designers were set the task of redesigning the cover for the Roald Dahl classic 'James and the Giant Peach'. Along with the organic-looking cover design, here, Joel goes to show how effective extending the brief can be, with a simple over-leaf pack which contains illustrations of the animals and insects featured within the story with mock-anatomical details and notes, adding another element of intrigue and delight for the young target audience.





Emiliano Ponzi
Milan, Italy

Something a little different this time, with some beautiful illustrative design by Italian artist, Emiliano Ponzi. I really love Emiliano's distinctive illustrative style with a texture, screen-print like style that really adds character and depth to the drawings throughout the book.
Here, the images ARE the book- playing a much larger role than the text does, visually communicating, as such, to narrate the story. Although images are going to be a very important factor within my work, I want to focus upon the balance of telling the stories as well as visually communicating them- and therefore hope to have more of a 50/50 divide between text content and images.