Book Design Process: Birth to big school

Time has gotten away from me and I am most certainly on holiday time, I had to ask SAH what day it was the other day as I couldn’t for the life of me remember – surely a good sign that I’ve relaxed a little and am truly on holidays for the first time this year? Well it may not last long as I have a huge work load to continue on with over the New Years break but for the last week there has been no work, just play.

This year I tried to work a lot more play into my work and having a child has really helped me explore this. I was given a brief from Pearson Education for an early learning and children’s services educational textbook series. The production editor included images of children painting as suggestions for the cover and it inspired me to combine work and play with Little A.

As Little A happily splodged and splattered paint about I photographed the sheer joy of it all.

The outcome was a uniquely tailored image for my client showing elements crucial to the learning outcomes in the textbook: freeform play, exploration, kids being kids and getting messy!

The internal designs continued the painty theme with splashes of watercolour on the page corners, as well as using light, bright colours for the pedagogical features.