This is the first front cover I created, blocking out my title and main character positions.
I hated it.
I wanted my title to be bigger, more obvious and more interesting, so I came up with this:
Much better! However I wanted it to appear so that the Bee was leaning on the text and that is why it is slanted, so I altered my little character a little.
My next thought was adding colour so I experimented with a few:
My favourite was the blue colour, however I still wasn’t thrilled with the design but I had hit a block and couldn’t think of any genius ideas. I decided to move on to my back cover whilst I think.
My back cover design came straight to me and I loved it. Not what I had planned in my storyboard but much better. The small details of the bees does not take the distraction away from the synopsis in the centre.
I then decided the small bees could be a theme and run on my front and back cover, which ultimately will be adding detail to my front cover and not look like too much.
I think I still need to spend some time playing around with the angles and positions of the bees however this design is much better than my original.
In my storyline I have a wooden table included in which the whole family of bees will sit round. Not being particularly amazing at drawing I searched Google on a tutorial on drawing a table, as I wanted to give it a go myself and not just use one I found online.
Before I continued with the rest of my book I completed the designs of my bee characters, using the sketches I uploaded and Photoshop. I have only worked on the one front pose for each character, and I want to experiment on using just this pose to start with, and then adding in other poses later on.
I started by removing the sketch and placing into a new blank canvas, removing the white and duplicating the sketch to make the other half of the bee.
Secondly I went over the outline with a small black paintbrush to make the outline of the bees more visible. And then began colouring the characters in.
I planned to use my sketch of the female bee for the character “Sally” however once edited the character looked more appropriate for the “Mother” character and I was short of a “Sally” and “Holly” bee. Using segments of different characters and editing them together, I was able to create the two new characters and distinguishing them somehow from the rest.
My focus in creating these characters was to make an obvious difference in look between each of them, so it would be easy for my younger target audience to distinguish between the characters and be able to follow the storyline.
I want to use the skills I have learn from my other projects to help make this project the best I could.
Branding and Identity
In the creation of my picture book It is important that I consider how I make each design (colour, shape, technique) but I also need to think why I am making it that way and what influence it will have on my reader.
The choice of colour I use can connote a lot about my book – the mood of the characters, the moral of the story, feelings and emotions. Because I want my book to be happy and light feeling, not very dark or sinister, I want to stick to a certain set of colours which will create the mood I have envisioned. I therefore created a colour palette with swatches of the colours I will be using mostly.
My Colour Palette
By using these colours they will be branding my book, with the aim being that people will begin to connote these colours with the book. Also, by sticking to these it will neaten the book up and look more professional.
Considering Audience
I need to make sure my book is correctly targeting my chosen audience.
My specific audience is both male and female, aged 3-7. I have chosen aged 3-7 because aged 3-5 the Adults can read to their children, and aged 5-7 they can read the book themselves as the language is not too difficult.
I have researched into books targeted at that age range. The majority of them have cartoon animals as main characters which is lucky for me as I have already decided on bees. It is hard however to properly look at these books online as it only shows the front covers and not the inside of the books. However from what i have seen and noticed is that the designs are very simple – not over complicated – which I would guess it makes it easier for the children to understand and follow the storyline of the book.
Typography
When I think of children’s books four main books come to mind: Winnie The Pooh, The Tiger who came to tea, The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Tabby McCat.
The aspect all these classic children’s books have in common is their use of a serif thin font. If I had more time for this project I would have loved to have created my own font for the book as it would be more of my own work, however as I have said I don’t have enough time. When playing around with my front cover and the title I have taken a strong liking to the font Lucida Bright Demibold.
“Lucida Bright Demibold” used on my title
I think this font is easy to read and has a classic “hard-book” look to it, like the ones above.
Storyline
Although I have already written my story and storyline I found a useful website called “Writing Children’s Books for Dummies” and it gave useful tips about creating your storyline.
This has given me almost “feedback” to look at my own storyline and see if it is suitable and will target/attract/appeal to my audience.
I have began working on my front cover, following my plan ideas in my storyboard.
I began with my central image of my main character. I have chosen this bee sketch that i scanned in.
I removed the white from the background, duplicated the layer and flipped the layer horizontally to make the left side of the body.
The outline needed a thin layer over the top to make it stand out more, and then I began colouring in the body on a layer underneath the outline – as shown in my workshop.
I then placed in my title (temporary font and colour until I have decided on my type) and a shadow underneath the bee. I like the simplicity of my front cover at the moment and I think the plain white background is working better than a block colour, however I may add a faded background like I did for my first page but a green colour for the floor rather than blue for the sky.
