Making this children's book was alot of fun for me because it let me draw which is what i love to do, i doodle all the time. I also got to make up a story. Everyone loves reading children's book when they're young and this was a cool experience to be able to create something i treasure.
Since our projects had to be about a job that included art, I chose graphic design. My Children's book was about album art designing.
The story is this guy named Dave who gets kicked out of his band so goes to his mom for advice, she tells him to go into graphic design (he studied it inUniversity) which he does by going to an interview thus, getting the job. His job entails meeting bands, listening to there music for inspiration and drawing album covers. One day, a little boy named Justin Bieber doesn't like the album Dave has made for him so he has a fit, and with Justin Bieber being the biggest thing in music right now... Dave is called into his boss's office to discuss his future at the design company. He is told he has one night to do the Bieber album or he'll be fired. Dave stays up all night and finishes the album which Justin likes so much he asks about the fine art of graphic designing which he decides to go into as a profession, leaving music scared for ever. And with that, Dave had saved music from Justin Bieber and was able to keep his job.
My intended message for my book was for it to be fun but look a little serious. I would probably recommend it for kids aged 5-11. I wanted the colours to be very plain and not very bright, more black and white. I also wanted the drawings to be straightforward and to the point and not spend too much attention to detail. When i was working with the grade 4's, Owen understood the whole story withouth words written on the page, just from the pictures which made me think i could have a younger audience. The others thought it was funny that i had Justin Bieber in my story.
I chose a glossy paper for my pages to help with drawing and give it a more professional feel. It worked very well with pencil crayons and black marker. I made a mistake by buying the wrong sized tip for the black markers but it still came out all right. I used cardboard for the covers. On the cover of the book i put some cool album designs (Jimi Hendrix: Axis Bold as Love, Protest the Hero: Fortress, Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy, The Fall of Troy: Manipulator, and Cream: disraeli gears) and no name on the cover just like so bands started doing in the early 70's. To be honest, i forgot all of the binding techniques for the book so decided to cut the covers off of a binder and use the clips of that and punch holes in my pages. I made the book the size of an album because the topic was album art design. I also made the book like comic book with four pictures on a page because it was doable and I thought it would be easier to look at as a child. I felt that there was more movement this way.
Two positive aspects that i think were present in my work were my drawings which I'm quite proud of because they had a 3-D aspect to them and my ability to make the whole thing rhyme (terribly). Two things i could have improved on were first, my binding technique. I really wish i did that in class. Second, I wish i made it look more like an album but easier said than done. I also wish i had made my own album art for the cover.
As I said before, I really enjoyed doing this project because I got to make something I love dearly, Children’s books. As always, it seemed like a daunting task when we first received the project but I think mine turned out quite all right.
