Branding, Identity, Audience, Typography, Storyline

March 30, 2016April 10, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Project Four, Research Audience, Branding, Colour, Identity, Project Four, Research, Storyline, typography

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.

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 — “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.

Layout designs

March 24, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Project Four, Research Layout, Project Four, Research

Before I start my storyboard I did some research in some different ways some children’s picture books have laid out their text and images.

The design layout that most appealed to me was the Winnie the Pooh designs. I like these because the images are purposefully created to look as if they have been hand drawn, with the text placed around the images in the blank spaces. By placing the text almost ‘wrapped around’ the image I think it closely links them together, reinforcing the warm, family-orientated, comforting appeal the Winnie the Pooh books aim to create. In my storyboard I will use the books as inspiration for my layout.

Research into Bee Characters

March 18, 2016March 18, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Project Four, Research Characters, Project Four, Research

I searched the internet for images of bee’s in books, films and just examples of animated/cartoon bees.

The Bee Movie

Cartoon Bees

Winnie the Pooh Bees

From my research I have found that the drawing/creation of a bee character needs to be simplistic and not over complicated – which is to my benefit as I am not the best at drawing. It needs to be essential that I have a black outline, even if it is very thin, around my bee’s to make the yellow body and white wings stand out against my white background.

I need to experiment drawing out my characters, but I think I will be scanning these into Photoshop and creating them using the brush tools and paint tools. I also need to start thinking about my backgrounds, and how I want the front cover to look.

Picture Book: Old Favourites

March 18, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Project Four, Research ideas, Project Four, Research

For this project I began by looking at some of my favourite books I read as a child.

The “Biff, Chip and Kipper” Books.

“Spot the Dog” Books

“Kipper” Books

“Dear Zoo” Book

I think they key to creating this picture book is not not over complicate my designs – if I keep them simple, I can add more, depending on how it looks.

I need to come up with my storyline, main characters and colour palette first, before I start thinking about my layout and sketching all my designs out.

I am hoping my upbringing with lots of younger siblings will be an advantage for me in this project, as I have lots of books to look at from home, as well as a history of reading a lot of them to my siblings when they were younger.

Business Card Design

February 15, 2016 Francesca Hannah Veal Development, Project Three, Research Branding, Business Card, Colours, Layout, Project Three, Research

I decided to create a business card for my branding package for Fitnesse.

My first stage in the design was researching existing gym business cards and the layouts. I used the four below as my inspiration and layout ideas for my own.

I began with the front design of my card and recreated the simplicity of the first image in the gallery above. I wanted to link the poster design in and used a simple statement “GO TO THE GYM” in the same font as on my posters and website. With a plain background this really makes a striking impression, enough for someone to pick it up and have a look at the back.

I then began working on the back design of my business card. Incorporating the hexagon design featured on my website, I used the shape to separate the card into two sections; the left side with the iconic figure of the woman from the “You put the I in Fitnesse” slogan and a list of the gyms facilities, and the right side is more informative on how to get in touch with the gym and their social media pages. I also added the 5 coloured hexagons from the top right corner of my website design onto the business card as well to keep the hexagon design a main part of the branding.

I used my main darker colours from my colour swatch for the card, but keeping with a plain white background so I could include a large amount of infomation without it looking too over crowded.

All I have left to do is to add my card onto a mock-up to display it in a more professional way.