How to be a good human is a 28 page ABC book with a meaning behind it. Unlike many basic children’s ABC books this one tackles problems such as racism and bullying and turns the ABCs into a positive self teaching book. Ultimately the book shows how a person should act throughout life and the qualities you need to be ‘a good human’. As hand symbols are used it also allows the child to interact and copy the symbols with a person reading the book to them, giving more appeal to a younger audience. My target audience would be around kids aged 4-7 due to some complex words used, i also feel this book could appeal to an older audience due to the way i will design the book and the meanings behind it.

Aims:

– to teach kids positivity and the acts that follow being a good person.

– to teach that everyone is equal no matter race, skin color or religion

– make the book fun but also educational

– produce a book suitable for kids between the ages of 4-7

page breakdown:

– cover // collage of hands with title over top

– page 1-26 // each set of pages will include the same color so when turned it will feature a new set of colors on each double page spread, each letter will feature a new symbol and word.

– back cover // will show illustrators name e.g By Isaac Tingey

I wanted to play around with some ideas i had so i gathered some images of hand symbols off the internet and started to experiment. I played with different colours and font styles to see what worked and what didn’t. I found that using bright colours made the images stand out more and would stand out more to kids when reading. I feel the photos of the hands work best in black and white against a colour background, I am still in decisive as to wether i want colour consistency throughout the book or different colours on each page. For the three examples i made i felt the colours and text used where the best three to go together. I only put very simple illustration on one of the mock ups (team), I want to add a lot more when coming to make the book as i feel it is very effective and keeps a young audience interested as the subject is on a serious matter. I had the thought of creating a simple character who is displayed on each page.

 

I came across this book in one of the lectures, it is a book called ‘Humans And Other Animals’ by Artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin. It is a fun A-Z book in sign language that makes the reader ‘listen with there eyes’ which is what i want to portray in my own book. Its a visually simple but very effective way of displaying text and photos together. a quote from the artists explain the visual process in more detail: “Its vocabulary and grammar are constructed in physical space and the deaf are, unsurprisingly, much better at processing visual information than the rest of us. Sign language is ideal for teaching children something about how to look and understand the visual world.”.

I like The way they use bright colours against a black and white background, the contrast between the two colours works well and catches the eye to what is the main focus on the page. The use of random imagery also works well with linking the words displayed, leaving the reader having to link the two together, very effective. In addition to this i like how the type used is very simple and clear which relates to the overall style of the book. I will take a lot of inspiration from this book as it is similar to what i want to achieve in my own work.

So for this new brief we are asked to create a children’s picture book that help explains harsh or difficult subjects. I want to use photography within my book and linking that with simple illustrations to go with the imagery. I will be basing my book around equality and positive subjects, i will be using people to illustrate these subjects. Essentially i want the book to be as simple and fun as possible I will be looking into ABC books for kids and the different styles they use as well as other children’s books that use an array of photography and illustrations together.

When making my leaflet it was important that i stuck to a similar style and used the same colours throughout. I designed my leaflet in a square shaped layout, i did this purely for being slightly different to most flyers and the fact it is easier to put in a pocket/bag as it is smaller. With the colours i used on my logo i played with the colour of text against background colours. I found that Black worked best with the initial background colour against a a white text, black seemed more masculine and appealing to a male audience so it made sense for me to use it. Just like my hair wax and business cards i wanted to keep the clean, simple designing and framing throughout. So i went on to do the front cover which is very basic and includes just the name of the company and the logo situated in the bottom right corner as it bleeds over. Moving on to the middle of the flyer i wanted to frame my text in a way that reflected on the company,  by breaking up the page and splitting the red and black with a white line which i feel looks very effective and helped place my text and pictures. In addition to this my business card uses a dashed square to surround text so i followed this design style and placed it around the text, logo and framing on the back cover. I liked how the title looked written downwards so i applied this to the headers within the leaflet as well as applying the text boxes in the same way. The photos i used where sourced from google images but if i was to make this for a real company i would use photos very similar to the ones chosen. I would have also included pictures of the products when made and put on a shelf.