Final Major Project Evaluation

What and How

For my final project I decided upon writing, illustrating and producing a children’s book.

Producing a printed book felt like the best way to promote my work for display – and, possible future employers could see that I can produce an all round package, from inception of an idea, all the way through to a finished product. 

I wanted to show that I had the knowledge, technique and skill to associate drawings to a narrative – which is, after all, the basis of illustration.

To help me decide which style or medium I wanted to illustrated in, I experimented in the following ways to produce the desired affect I wanted for my book: 

·        I would look at animals in their natural habitat, observing both colours and textures of their environment and themselves, plus their bodily stance, sizes, etc. to gain an insight into how to best pose them. I found I started off drawing animals in static poses; they were far too rigid for the story so decided upon drawing them in action poses which represented the story better.

·        I used different types of backgrounds, experimenting using autumn leaves to cover the page, but found this to distract from the animal drawings and decided not to run with that idea. In future I may use this, but for now I wanted the animals to stand out so used natural settings as a background.

·        I started with pen drawings of animals so I learnt to develop their structure correctly, then went on to using acrylics, softening their edges which made them “cuter” and more desirable for a younger audience. Building up layers with acrylic gave a bulkier yet softer fur to the animals bodies.

·        Autumn was the season I was trying to capture in the story so different shades and hues of red, brown, yellow and orange were used. These colours can be quite dull so the task I had was to make these colours look more interesting. I hoped to achieve this by building up and mixing layers of different colours together, only breaking them up by using the odd hint of brighter colours like blue or white.

Audience

My target audience for the book is actually three-fold…

1.      Children as an audience

• Over the course of my degree I have taken the opportunity to visit primary schools and speak with teachers and pupils to assess what makes a successfully illustrated book.
• I questioned which areas of literature were lacking in certain topics so that I could produce a book which would fill a niche.
• I have taken the opportunity, to speak with children’s book illustrators such as Caroline Pedler, Julie Symons, Kev F Sutherland (Beano illustrator) to gain an insight into what is required of a children’s book illustrator and author.
• I have given a copy of the book I produced to the primary school that helped me with my research as a thank you. The infant techers have all read my book to their classes, and many parents at the school have requested to purchase copies of my book. Again, I would like to consider this as a success. 

My book being read to a Reception Class in a Primary School

2.      Purchasers of the book

• Children of the age my book is pitched at would not actually be purchasing the book themselves, so I would also have to make it interesting for the adult choosing the book.
• I decided to create an educationally interesting and informative book (many parents like this format).
• I wanted to produce a book that wasn’t boring and engaged the adult as well as the child.
• As I mentioned before, many parents at the school have requested to purchase copies of my book, so I would like to think I reached this target audience.

3.      Publishers / Agents as a market

• I looked at which illustrators had a similar style to myself, and researched who represented/published their work so as to deduce which publishers/agents I should be targeting and how best to pitch my book.
• For The London Book Fair I had produced business cards and badges for self- publicising, however, I found that showing my book as part of my self-promotion actually opened up doors to meetings with art directors there and then.
• I was fortunate to have two publishing houses interested in my book – Templar Publishing and Little Tiger Press. The Art Director of Little Tiger Press emailed me the same night of meeting her, setting up a meeting for me the next day with herself and her Publishing Editor at Little Tiger Press’ Publishing House in SW6. They seemed interested and impressed with what I had produced and have asked me to re-contact them after I have completed my degree. 
• The first agent I approached at the Book Fair has since emailed me to confirm they are more than happy to represent me after I have finished my degree too.

In Conclusion…

I would like to presume that from the time I had at The London Book Fair i.e. obtaining interest from publishing houses and an offer from an agent, and from the feed back I've recieved from the Primary School that I gave my book to, that the positive response I was hoping to achieve from my final project was reached.