Childrens book project

I was delighted to hear that our next project in uni was to design a children's book something which is very much on my level! although as a sign of the times we are not being asked to design a physical thrilling page turner, but rather an interactive book for the ipad i was a little disappointed at this but i suppose that's the way technology is going and as designers we have to keep up or get left behind.

i have a great love for cartoons and children's animation already but i decided to go see what kids actually enjoy and went to a primary school, and was delighted to find we had a lot in common and had the same taste in books!

The books the kids enjoyed were books i had read as a kid when i was in that very school, always a favourite is Eric Carles the Hungary Caterpillar its one i can vividly remember as a child and its still very popular today. And to my delight also in the pile was a personal favourite Meg and Mog of which for 'research' i already have copies of both DVDs. i love the illustration style its clean bright and bubbly, i always remember Mog the cat because of his stitches like tail their simple little character that work well over various coloured backgrounds.

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I have also come across another great children's book by Shaun Tan its a fantastic book called The lost Thing and it is beautifully illustrated i just got My copy in the post the pother day again for 'research' and the pictures don't do it justice.

Its a simple little story but the illustrations really take over there is SO much detail i could stare at it for hours, i love the way the type is Incorporated also it looks written on little bits of lined paper and cut and pasted on and fits in with the style of the book. i like this as I'm aware type on the books can be an issue of how to incorporate it to the illustration style.

However for our project we are aiming our books at an audience of roughly 3 to 4 year olds so the simpler the style the better with much more bright and bold colours and not a lot of type. So i would like to have mine more in the style of meg and Mog, I have a few ideas i am working on at the minute but from my research the children responded best to books where colour was the main theme.

Colour me happy was a great little book which aimed to teach children about emotions using colour each page was fantastically vibrant and all based on a particular emotion "when i am bored colour me grey" and the page would be filled with lots of different grey, blue and purple tones. I have got a lot of ideas from these books so its time to get sketching on my own i will up date with any progress.