Investigations

From my research, I had three very different ideas:

Originally I wanted to collaborate and step out of my comfort zone to make something I hadn’t done before, thus I decided to make the activity booklet. This decision was made after a group tutorial - my tutors and peers said that I seemed most excited about this idea, and it was more in my field of study. I started my visual research on pinterest

I chose this project to try something different, and possibly collaborate. I found the speed-networking event wasn’t as useful as I had hoped; I didn’t get to speak to as many people from different courses as I wanted. I also think that my portfolio didn’t show the wider spectrum of my capabilities.

When I decided I wanted the activity booklet to have a hand-drawn style to it, I asked my illustrator colleague to help me out. However, he has a full time job and I realised I couldn’t rely on this possible collaboration. I did some quick sketches anyway, to see if I could draw a character to include in the book. I also sketched up a typeface, which I later developed.

Although I didn’t collaborate with a colleague or fellow student, I found that I’ve had a bit of collaboration with the Whitworth – one of the most valuable experiences from this project, has been to talk to Jennifer Allison about the current activities available to kids at the gallery. Jennifer helps to run the Artist Sundays – they create ‘activity bags’, which children and their family can come along and try for free every Sunday. Each activity bag runs for a month and is based on a certain artist and their work. She gave me some great tips and ideas – such as which activities are the most popular, and which ones aren’t so successful. She also told me to be IMPERATIVE when writing up the instructions.  

As well as receiving amazing research and ideas from the Whitworth, I found a great reference to help with aesthetic and conceptual ideas – the quarterly kids magazine ‘Anorak’. It is a unisex publication, for ages 6-12. This magazine was the main reason I decided I wanted my booklet to be illustrative, and also the reason I decided on the 2 colour approach – Anorak also do activity books, and they are all singular coloured. I actually bought a copy of the magazine – the ‘outdoors’ one – in the hope it would give me inspiration for ideas for outdoor activities. However, I was a bit disappointed with the amount of activities in the magazine, and how little they related to ‘outdoors’.  It only had 3 types of activity – counting, colouring in, and one where you cut out clothes and dress two characters.

Designing the activities for the booklet has been quite difficult at times, as they need to be educational and fun, as well as relating to the gallery and park. I borrowed a DSLR from Uni, and went around the Whitworth taking photos of all the pieces of art that I could make an activity from.

I used some of these photos directly, to make my activities. 

I made a dot-to dot activity that didn't quite work

I also made a colouring in activity based on the 'Whitworth Park obelisk'

Having never made a product for kids before, it was interesting to try and get in the mind of a child - to create activities that were educational and fun, but also not to difficult or simple. The audience is pitched at ages 6-12, so I needed to have a range of activities and the aesthetic to be appealing, which is part of the reason I wanted it to be illustrative. Due to the fact that I wasn’t able to collaborate with an illustrator, it has meant that I have had to try different approaches. In particular, I’ve had to use pencil and pen effects much more, but still using Photoshop and Illustrator for finesse.

I started by drawing the design with pencil

I then went over it in pen, to then scan in to edit

I live traced it in Illustrator, then edited it to make the spot the differences!

I used Photoshop for this one, the lasso tool, to cut out the snowman shape

I realised there were too many numbers in this dot-to dot!

So I cut them down by almost half

This is the original photo I took of the painting.

I used Illustrator to live trace it, and then got rid of the colours and neatened the lines

I drew out some origami instructions I found online. I then went over them in pen, then scanned it in and used illustrator to neaten it up and add text

I copied a maze I found online, by eye. I then used a ruler and pen to neaten it. 

I looked at youtube tutorials on how to draw cartoon trees. I scanned these in to use in my booklet

I am also very pleased with the typeface I designed.

I scanned this into Illustrator to fill in the letters

After a tutorial, I decided to stick to a few main activities and concentrate on the design of the book. I was told to do a mock-up of my book, to figure out which activities to put in.

This mock-up also really helped me when it came to figuring out the colours for my spreads

The book contains just two colours – the first half will be a red brick colour for the ‘indoor’ activities, and the second half will be a grass green for the ‘outdoor’ activities. I also limited the colour palette, as there is a couple of colouring in activities in it.

I wanted the colours to be as true to The Whitworth as possible, so I used the eyedropper tool to select specific colours from my photos

In terms of skills and processes, I wanted to print my booklet in a hand-made fashion, so I decided to screenprint it. This will be a challenge in itself as I have only ever had an induction to this process. The decision was made against using risograph, as I will only be making 3 copies at most, and it’s more expensive.

Time management will be crucial from now on as I have to finalise the booklet activities. I need to decide on a final tonal colourway and test these colours in print. I also need to get screens made and book a slot to print. As well as all this, I will do a real life test of the booklet. I have three young cousins – Lola, 8, Cameron, 10, and Jonah who is 14. I will take them copies of the booklet to analyse their engagement.