Yasmin Palmer

Visual Elements Of Children’s Illustration Books

As with any design product there are various elements that are comprised within each piece. These are a few to take into consideration when designing for a children’s book:

– Line

Important in that it is used to create shape and meaning, also capable of suggesting motion, direction and energy.

– Colour

Colour is one of the key elements and is often utilised a lot more within childrens illustrations as a technique of grabbing their attention. Is also an effective way of conveying emotions or states through the use of colour and meaning.

– Shape

Another element utilised as connotations to visually represent the story. Basic/ simple shapes are often pictured within children books as a way of connecting to children, simpler shapes are often easier to decode.

– Texture

Is an element that is frequently seen within illustrations to recreate textual imagery that strengthens the illustrations and often tells a story within itself.

– Text

Text is utilised in numerous ways, often seen adjacent to illustrations on opposite pages. Or is also found following a path upon the illustration.

Belly Band Book Bindings

Having looked at the various ways of binding books, one process stood out to me the most; the belly band. I feel that I could effectively link this to my concept of the colouring book, by maintaining a black and white colouring theme upon the title; incorporating a bright see through band that is capable of moving across the book cover to highlight.

I’m hoping to recreate the same effect of this example, as it emphasises the contrast between the black and white background and the brightly coloured binding, it also effectively has a striking aesthetic appearance that makes the colour stand out.

Experimenting With Background

To experiment with background, I chose to look into brush styles within Indesign, this is one outcome focusing on the illustration of the elephant.I tried to recreate a similar look and texture as if it had been roughly coloured in with a paintbrush to connect more to children, it also has a similar resemblance to the concept of colouring books which is a possible direction my work will take. However i felt that the outcome of this example was too rough and disordered that the colour and texture detracts the attention away from the linear drawing of the elephant.

Eagle Illustration

To input a slight colour palette I used shape elements to create a sense of a background; I utilised certain colours to recreate the environment  with which the selected animal lives within.

So for example my illustration of the eagle I chose to use a brown circular shape as a background and for which to foreground my eagle. I have also chosen to remain the eagle as a white colour to still enable the ability for readers to colour in. 

Illustrations from drawings

After researching into children’s illustrations it’s apparent that the majority of childrens literature incorporates animals as a way of reflecting the morals of the story; similar to anthropomorphism.

From this I have decided to hand draw illustrations of animals with a biro pen, focusing upon the lines of the animals to create texture and outlines. 

These are all images of some drawings I have done incorporating animals as the primary piece. As a way of illustrating these drawings into a simpler more linear illustration I utilised the adobe app ‘Shape’ in order to create these drawings into a vector image and to enable me to further edit within Adobe Illustrator.