OUGD505: Studio Brief 1: Final Design

The final outcome came out very well, there were a few snags and issues with the final book but overall most of the pop ups worked and the binding held together well. When it came to creating the book I had to improvise the binding methods, they needed to hold the pages together but allow for space behind each page that would make the pop up work, this created some imperfections in the final product and made some pages awkward to turn. There is also an issue with the second pop up on pages 7 and 8, it doesn't actually pop up properly, however that aside the rest of it works well. 

OUGD505: Studio Brief 1- Experimentation

Prior to printing I wanted to make sure I chose a suitable stock and that the final pages could be bound together whilst still allowing the pop ups to work.

After looking through some stock choices I chose a 200 gsm satin stock that could stand up to some wear and tear, pop ups and greasy sticky fingers. I then mocked up some of my more complicated pages to make sure that they would work with the stock when bound and produced a cover with thinner stock to fully understand how the whole finished book would hold up together.

The result is the cutest mock up you've ever seen. It helped me figure out some final bugs I wouldn't have initially seen coming as well as work out any worries I had previously had with producing the final book.

OUGD505: Studio Brief 1- Development

I began to digitise the various illustrations required for the book as well as the front cover. I had initially wanted to use a style with very bold outlines, however, it proved more suitable and a better look overall to keep them simple and vectorised. Although I am aware I'm designing a book for children, I also want to produce something that is beautifully designed too so treading a line between the two is my overall aim. As long as it's still appropriate for the target audience (which I think it is thanks to the bright colours and lack of complication in the images) then it works.

The title font I chose for the publication is called 'DJB This is Me' and the body font is Avenir Medium.

I chose this is me as it's a friendly, casual and approachable font. It also looks childish in its production. I wanted the titles and questions to appear as if a child/the audience wrote them to further connect the reader to the information. I also wanted the tone of voice to not be dominating or authoritative, this font makes sure that when reading the titles the voice seems friendly and safe.

I chose avenir medium as my main text font as it's easy to read but still friendly and casual. It was very important to select a font that was legible and readable but with a suitable tone, avenir does all of these things well. It's easy to read and understand and has a rounded, safe and friendly character.

Using my sketches as well as the developed illustrations I began to set out the pages. I made sure to size up each added pop up and illustration for each page and leave markers that would make the final production of the book easier. Although certain pages required black backgrounds due to their illustrations I wanted to add sky based colours to the others, I feared over using black would make the pages very dull to a child and although there are illustrations and interactions I still wanted to brighten up whichever pages I could.

OUGD505: Studio Brief 1- Pop up Experiments

To avoid any snags later down the line I made a rough mockup of my book out off paper based off of the page sketches. As well as understanding how each pages element/pop up worked it also helped visualise the final designs and how I would have to produce the attachable elements so they would work in the finished book.

OUGD505: Studio Brief 1- Initial Development

After producing, simplifying and dividing up my research it was time to start visualising how each page of the book would look. I didn't want to produce a book that was too long, it needed to be short, entertaining and concise so children won't get bored when reading. 

As well as considering the layout I also decided which pop ups would be most suitable for each page, different pop ups and interactions would be paired with the information most suitable. I was cautious not to repeat the same interactive element over and over to keep the book interesting and each page unique. The layout sketches gave me a clear idea of how the book would look and feel and also a list of the required illustrations to start working on.

OUGD505: Studio Brief 1- Why is the Sky Blue?

The first book will tackle the question why is the sky blue? So it's important to fully understand why and then simplify the science for children aged 7-11.

So how do we see?

It's all about light, when light hits an object it reflect or bounces off the object and enters our eyes, this is how we see. When the light hits our eyes it travels trough our pupils and lens and hits an area at the back of our eye called the retina.

The retina is made up of photoreceptors called rods and cones. The rods are sensitive to light and dark, shape and movement. The cones are not as sensitive to light, instead they are sensitive to colour. There are three different cones in our eye those most sensitive to blue light, those most sensitive to red light and those most sensitive to green light.

When light hits an object, like a red apple it absorbs all the other colours and reflects back red into our eyes. The red cones are stimulated and this causes us to see red. Yellow light will be reflected back from a yellow banana into our eyes and cause us to see yellow.

So why is the sky blue?

Light from the sun is not white as it appears and in fact contains a vast spectrum of light with all the colours of the rainbow within it, we can see this when we split light with a prism. Light travels in waves and some of this waves are shorter or longer than each other, blue light has the shortest, 'choppiest' waves and travels the quickest. Red light the longest, lazy waves and travels the slowest, this is why red is on the outside of a rainbow and blue on the inside. Light will always travel in straight lines until something either reflects it, like when we see, bends it, like with our prism or scatters it.

So why does it get scattered?

Our atmosphere/the air we breathe is made up of millions of little particles containing oxygen and nitrogen, when light hits these molecules it scatters separating all the colours. Because blue is the shortest choppiest wave length it is more likely to hit all the little particles in the air. The particles absorb the blue light and reflects it back out again scattering it across the sky, the light then reaches our eyes and makes the sky look blue.

But why then is a sunset red?

As the sun gets lower in the sky light has to pass through more atmosphere to get to you, this means the quickly scattered blue light gets scattered even more trying to get through all those particles allowing the red and yellow light to pass through the atmosphere and enter your eye.




Rewritten for Children

How do we see?

When light hits an object it bounces off the object and enters our eyes, this is how we see. When the light hits our eyes it travels trough our pupils and hits an area at the back of our eye called the retina.

The retina is made up of photoreceptors called rods and cones. The rods are sensitive to light and dark, shape and movement. The cones are sensitive to colour. There are three different cones in our eye those that see blue, those that see red light and those that see green.

When light hits an object, like a red apple it reflects red back into our eyes. The red cones react and this causes us to see red. Yellow light will be reflected back from a yellow banana into our eyes and cause us to see yellow.

Why is the sky blue?

Light from the sun looks white but it actually contains all the colours of the rainbow. Light travels in waves and some of this waves are shorter or longer than each other, blue light has the shortest waves and travels the quickest. Red light the longest waves and travels the slowest, this is why red is on the outside of a rainbow and blue on the inside. 

The air we breathe is made up of millions of little particles like oxygen and nitrogen. When light hits these particles or molecule it scatters separating all the colours. Because blue is the shortest and quickest wave length it is more likely to hit all the little particles in the air. The particles absorb the blue light and reflects it back out again scattering it all across the sky. This scattered light then reaches our eyes and makes the sky look blue.


But why is a sunset red?

As the sun gets lower in the sky light has to pass through more air or atmosphere to get to you. This means the quick blue light gets scattered even more trying to get through all those particles allowing the red and yellow light to pass through the atmosphere and enter your eye. This is why the sky at sunset looks red.

OUGD505: Studio Brief 1: Research

For my research I decided to look at various examples of scientific kids books, first I started with some basic education books to get an idea of what kind of science is being taught to my target audience age.

Although they were informative they weren't exactly engaging and exciting to look at, they mostly functioned as an 'answer the questions' tool. Though they were practical I don't think they would really get children excited about science, it may in fact make it seem like hard work and I think it could be done better.

The next section I went to look at was the more engaging, interactive science based books. These were a lot brighter, more illustrative and certainly a lot more fun and engaging. The pop up book really excited me and I think it brought the science to life, this is what I want to replicate with my own book. Despite there being many general all round science books there was nothing that went into specific scientific questions so there is still a gap in the market for my idea of answering one question per book, though the feasibility of this may change after further research and selecting my final questions.