Objective
DERT books partnered with Parsons in order to create socially conscious children’s books. Students were tasked to create books for multiple age groups ranging from babies to young children. The first book is intended for parents to read with their babies. This baby board book explores themes of friendship and introduces babies to the elements. The friends of this giant floating rock can be recognized in everyday life. DERT books helps foster loving memories for parents by promoting reading to their babies as a growing tradition.
Research & Inspiration
I started off searching for some baby book boards. The ones I selected had distinct and unified design choices.
I came up with a few ideas for baby book boards that held unique, interesting, and important themes. I finalized my research and decided to pursue “A Giant Floating Rock,” so that babies may recognize the living elements around them and promote friendliness towards these living beings.
After finalizing the color scheme and typographic choices, I ended up changing the typography. The brushstroke and geometric fonts took away from the artwork and I settled on a friendly rounded san serif.
Approach
I wrote the baby board book and laid out all the text with sketches, along with a few cover iterations.
Challenges & Constraints
After analyzing the layout and designs, I though that black was too sharp and intense of a color for a baby board book. The final designs replaces most instances of black with blue to create a brighter theme. Further, I redesigned the cover and used the earth in the front and the moon in the back to create individual and yet unified artworks. Lastly, I changed the title font to the one used in the story to create softness and overall unification.
Objective: The Falcon and the Duck
This is a Native American story that has been passed down orally for generations. The design is saturated throughout the foreground, middle ground, and background, indicating the life energy present in the environment. This design is a concept inspired by Native American philosophy. This book is meant to be read to young children. In a colorful manner, this tale warns children of their egos and to wait to count their wins. DERT books promotes unique stories that preserve culture and curiosity.
Research & Inspiration
I was inspired by the Native American philosophy that everything is living. I wanted this philosophy to be reflected in the design of this book. I accomplished this by saturating the background, foreground and middle ground equally, to show the spirit of every aspect of earth earthI found some examples of illustrations and books that have this dense and vibrant quality, personalizing our environment.
Approach
Challenges & Constraints
I realized that the saturation of the design made the text illegible. In the final version, I use a colored text box to promote legibility. To save time, I created a few patterns to be overlaid throughout the scene. I found that these patterns created texture that delivered vibrancy across the page.
Objective: King Michael
Create an audio visual children’s book that adheres to DERT’s values of promoting childhood literacy.
Research & Inspiration
Approach
After creating the illustrations, I wanted to animate certain aspects to bring the story to life.
Challenges & Constraints
The most challenging part of this project was recording the audio that accompanies the story. The constraint I applied to this entire project is that it cannot be overwhelmingly cheerful, as most children’s books are. I wanted the youth to be able to tackle other emotions and feelings and have these discussions with their parents.
Video: King Michael