Design Factory

The Brief

• This project is all about user-centric design thinking. You are invited todesign an intervention that will make the intended user feel something strongly about themselves. Your task is to develop something with which an individual can engage and then say “I feel… *something*” (e.g. “I feel invincible”, “I feel small”, “I feel in-tune with my environment”, “I feel weightless”, “I feel rebellious”, “I feel contented”).

  The resulting intervention or outcome could take any form. For example, you could design:

• an inhabitable space,

• a piece of graphic communication,

• an item of clothing or

• an interactive system/ piece of technology.

My Proposal

To design a children’s song book based on the French song ‘Alouette’.  The song first published in 1879 is about a Lark’s feathers being plucked from different parts of its body. Today, the song is used to teach French and English speaking children in Canada and other English speakers learning French around the world the names of body parts. Singers will point to or touch the part of their body that corresponds to the word being sung in the song.

The song used as a great learning tool is memorable due to its grotesque translation into English, my aim is to illustrate the song in a way that doesn’t appear evil or grotesque making it more suitable to children.

I will begin by researching the origins of the song (French and Canada) as I hope to include some elements from these countries, then I will decided on an illustration style and colour palette for the book and begin to create the illustrations.

The song Alouette does not have much visual media attached to it besides a few videos on youtube, so I had a blank slate to start my research. Thinking back to the brief I needed to create a book that the used would become emotionally involved with

 What makes a great picture book?

I’ve been looking into what makes a good children’s book in terms of illustration – below are a selection of the best children’s books of 2014. Hand-drawing seems to be a good place to start and also having a strong main character who appeals to readers

Because I am illustrating for a song that is already written my main focus are the visuals, the key topics I need to think about when creating my illustrations are.

To design a character that the reader connects to with illustrations that are authentic, captivating and exciting.

Illustrate a story/journey while following the song

To aid the learning experience with images.

Development

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Developing an Illustration style