GDES2014 – Children’s Book Design – Main brief part 4

GDES2014 – Children’s Book Design

WW1 Recipe book brief – Further research

Existing Books

I looked at a number of children books as well as cookery books, Design books and historical references to the First World War.

The Cheeky Monkey book shows a good example of added features with the glove puppet plush toy that goes through the centre of the book.

The Roald Dahl books show very bold colours in the background and type elements, with Quentin Blakes simple illustrations over the top.  This creates a strong divide between the left and right of the cover but is then joined by the book title at the bottom that reads more traditionally (horizontally).

The David Walliams books feature Tony Ross’s amazing illustrations.  Each cover is similarr in that the top banner area is taken up by the authors name and then a large illustration below it.  Again strong colours are used for the backgrounds, but also feature some pattern elements such as stars.  The rosette is a nice touch too, which I may apply to my own design in the form of a medal.

I picked up the other books as they all feature some design elements that I feel may inspire my own cover design.  The Fateful year cover for example, features a lot of semiology to the time period from the type, to the illustration style, washed out colours and patriotic theme (flags, English Rose, Poppies etc).  I like the idea of using silhouettes as featured on “stories of the first world war”, perhaps in the form of a farmer digging, soldiers marching to war, standing over a grave etc.

The Line of Fire book is an illustrated diary and features a really nice, rough illustration style, which captures the gritty/dark nature of the time period.

 

Stuffed toy puppet poking through the book. Unique and fun

Tony Ross illustrations, simple compositional tools used to create balance

Simple imagery, again patriotic and iconic

Semitics used effectively to suggest England and the great war

Infographics based on WW1 data

Haynes Great War Tommy manual. Fun twist

Beautiful yet simple illustration style

Beautiful yet simple illustration style

Silhouette and iconic images used to represent WW1

Fun cover illustration

Roald Dahl books, shows unity across all titles and how effective they are together on the shelf. Interest type treatments

WW1 poster found in the Hive, Worcester

WW1 found in the Hive, Worcester

Really like the way the title wraps from the cover, across the spine to the rear cover

Nice use of old typewriter style font, bold title, faded photography

 

GDES2014 – Childrens Book Design – Week 4

GDES2014 – Childrens Book Design

For this weeks task, we were asked to follow a recipe from a list of WW1 inspired cookery.

I decided to work with Laura and Gintare on this task so that we could share the experience together, as well as allowing me to take photo’s as we followed the recipe.  It was a great fun afternoon.

We chose to bake the eggless sponge as I was curious as to how this would taste and also if it would rise the way a normal cake would.  We sourced the ingredients locally and easily.

The recipe was incredibly easy to follow and we had no major hiccups.  The only issue was that following the recipe to the letter resulted in only enough mix to fill one cake tin.  I had the idea to cook just the one sponge, cut it in half and stack it for the purposes of creating a sandwich.  It also meant it was nicely resented for the photographs.

The cake tastes surprisingly good, although incredibly sweet.  I don’t know if the amount of sugar the recipe suggested was too much or if combining the honey was a tad too much.  The original recipe suggest golden syrup though, so I’m guessing they had very sweet tooth around the time of WW1.

In total we probably spent just over an hour preparing the ingredients, following the recipe, taking photographs and allowing for baking time.  I don’t think it would take as long if I made it again as I wouldn’t be taking photographs and with three of us in the kitchen, we were probably getting in each others way…. Too many cooks and all that!

I can imagine that this recipe would have been popular during WW1, possibly even a little luxurious given the limited choices available back then.  With different fruit jams adding to variety I imagine this would have bought a little cheer to otherwise grim times.  Few, simple ingredients and surprisingly tasty results, definitely a winner!

I have put together an A4 document showing the stages of the recipe as well as the final product.