Brief 

In this brief, students were given a selection of childrens’ stories from the BookDash initiative and tasked with illustrating one of them in the form of a children’s book for ages 2-5. The illustrations had to be eye-catching but appropriate for children of this age and interactive so they could learn from the story and its illustrations. The book should be easy for parents to read to their children and able to grow with them until such time as they are able to read for themselves. 

Story Selection 

I chose “That’s Not Thabi! That’s a Hippopotamus!” as the story I wished to illustrate as I was always thrilled by appealing animal characters in children’s books when I was younger. I especially liked seeing African animals in my stories and thought that by choosing this material I would be able to show some love for the stories that raised me. I also liked the repetitive and almost rhyme-like nature of the narrative. 

In order to show that my illustrations do not necessarily need to be dark or horror-oriented, I chose to include clowns as the primary characters of the story. Clowns have received a bad rap in recent times thanks to the popularity of horror movies like “It” and I thought that by using a now “scary” design for the characters I would be able to show that I was able to adapt to the brief’s requirements beyond what was expected.

Visually, I decided to work with a modified primary colour palette in hopes that it could be a learning opportunity for child readers as well as to challenge myself to stick to a limited colour palette and get creative when depicting characters and natural elements appropriately. I also found that the colour palette worked well with the theme of “clowns” and a circus so it worked out well. 

I greatly enjoy character design so it was a pleasure to create a colourful cast of characters that children and parents could easily identify, maintaining consistency across multiple spreads and changes of scenery. I also wanted to keep the theme surrounding the characters throughout their environments, making use of bold patterns on walls and furniture to carry the circus theme. 

When it came to printing and constructing the book, I admit I fell in love with the process of cutting, compiling and stitching and this is something I carried with me into later projects.

This brief pushed me out of my comfort zone to some extent as much of my personal art and illustration experience comes from a place of horror and the macabre. Children aren’t usually on the top of my list when it comes to my audience so working to make a product that can be safely and sanely used by them was somewhat challenging. However, I enjoyed the opportunity to play with character design in a brief as it has always been something I am quite passionate about. Bringing a cast of colourful and enjoyable characters to life was quite rewarding and I found myself falling in love with the process, already planning to do more illustration work like this by the end of the project. It was a good opportunity to show some diversity in my portfolio as well as take the pressure off myself to make emotive and disturbing art best consumed by adults or the similarly disturbed.