Illustrative Books for Young Children

First Example: The Farm Animals by Rolando Merino. An illustrated story book of animal sounds when you turn the page over the animal sound begins.

Second Example: Invisible Alligators by Hayes Roberts. The story about Little Sari discovers invisible alligators quietly sneaking around creating trouble for her and everyone else.

During the weekend I let my self to explore different children's books at bookshops in order to get a clear view of the typography, the colours and the approach for children different ages. I found really interesting the friendly approach of the book called "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.

Eric Carle born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929. He acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books for very young children. His best-known work, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and has been translated into more than 47 languages and sold over 29 million copies. It has an appealing story, illustrated, brilliantly innovative with the cutout pages where it shows a caterpillar eating his way through the pages, which also let the children to poke their little fingers through the holes. However this book is a great experience from children between the age 2-4 years old and was first published in 1969 and people show that still use it till today considering that is a well known book that all grown ups read it once when they were children.

Yesterday I met with Tasha for my proposal feedback when she recommended to look into children's illustrative books that are made for children and not for adults. This will help me to understand what is their favourite story book, the font and colours that prefer and also understand the age difference.

Through my research I looked into books such as alphabeasties. This beautiful children’s book features animals crafted out of typefaces which it has friendly type and bright colours.

Also achieves a perfect balance of fun, friendly and well-executed design.

Also Bruno Munari an Italian artist and designer born in 1907 and died in 1998 created the ABC book for children. With so many alphabet books created so far, this particular book created in 1960 stands out with its simplicity (as it is a ABC book) and its arti friendly look. However ABC's fonts are made with a kid-friendly chunky black and clean-lined water-colours. Also I really like his quote and I thought to use it:

‘A thing is not beautiful because it is beautiful, as the he-frog said to the she-frog: it is beautiful because one likes it.’ Bruno Munari

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Yesterday I submitted my draft proposal to Tasha after researching children's narrative books to get a better view on my topic. However here is the brief overview I emailed:

Typography for narrative children’s books

Aim: To research and analyse artists that employ the use of hand illustrative lettering for children’s story books, gaining a deeper understanding into this accessible alternative to straight typesetting. Generating this idea in order to get away from the image describing the story, but using type letters to illustrate it.

The project is to describe typographic features in children’s readers in order to help them visualize the story with their own fantasy using typeface; word and line spacing; line length; ways of showing emphasis and use of punctuation.

Research: Should include analysis on original font creators such as Eric Gill and the ornate stylings of David Jones, look into clean cut perfectly hand rendered type from the 80s (Neville Brody [and impact on illustrator rendered logotype]), and research modern pioneers and illustrators such as Marion Deuchars, David Shrigley, Sara Fanelli and Bruno Munari. Also look into existing children’s narrative books in order to understand the target age of children, whether the book is:

• “Read to” : when the book is read by the parent to the child
• “Read with” : when the child reads the book with the parent
• “Read alone” : when the child reads the book alone

Impact: I hope that this will help me to understand identify when it is appropriate to use hand rendered type and also pick up a few tips on use of materials, letter form construction for children’s books. There are occasions when expressive typography contributes a welcome layer of visual enthusiasm that is impossible within the limits of traditional typesetting.

Sometimes the story demands that type, or lettering, simulate the sound, mood and even physical traits of words and phrases especially when the targeting audience is in the age of 3-6.