Children's toys based on children's drawings

http://todayilearned.co.uk/2012/04/28/there-is-a-company-which-makes-toys-based-on-childrens-drawings/

http://www.childsown.com/


So my friend sent my this link, it's about a company that makes toys based on childrens drawing. Parents would send off their kiddies drawings and then people would make a toy based on the image and then the parents can buy them. It's fab!
The characters from the drawings are so unusual and unique! Kid's minds are brilliant, I love this. I wish this was about when I was a kid as I would have sent them a million pictures (I might send some anyway as I love random teddys and things there just fun!)

Lots of imagination goes into children's drawings, I think people just think kids just doodle and do anything and their hands just go all over the place but if you think about it, they have wonderful minds and can come up with unusual things which can relate to other things. I enjoy looking at children's drawing, they almost remind me of something or spark off ideas for characters etc. Thinking like children is hard, as we all know from the 1st year of the course when we were told to not think too much about the things we are creating and to do something different. I do like working this way (though sometimes it doesn't go too well).

I wish I was a child again, just so I can create many more drawings that can make people smile :)

Podcast: Kevin Cross and Joshua Kemble

We have been encouraged to listen to some Podcasts by The Big Illustration Party, this is to help us see and understand what goes on in the illustration business and other design areas and how to get commissions and approach art directors. The podcast was a conversation between two designers/illustrators named Kevin Cross and Joshua Kemble; they talked about how to contact art directors and potential employees without being pushy or annoying.

They talked a fair bit about having to ring Art directors, which for some people, including myself, get very nervous doing. I don't like talking on the phone, not even to my own boyfriend really, I feel more comfortable being face to face with someone, so this is something I would get really nervous and stressed about, but the main key is to just be professional, once you get started you will be fine, I tend to be nervous meeting people, but after introducing myself and having general chit chat I tend to feel more calm and confident. 

They mentioned how to not sound like a door to door salesman, don't be too pushy about your work or a job, this might make you sound too cocky and unapproachable, therefore people might not want to work with you, you also might come across as annoying.

When emailing an art director/agency, make sure your emails are professional, and everything’s spelt right! give a few days before replying, but in the end, if they never reply, don't keep harassing them, this might come across as annoying or "spam" and you don't want people to end up blocking you as this then doesn't help you If you want to contact them again in the future.

One other thing that I found quite interesting from the convo between the lads was to do with holiday cards, and around the holidays if you produce cards or e-cards, that it's nice to send them to art directors you have worked with or want to with, this might draw their attention to you or remind them of your work and make them want to contact you. But if you do this the cards have to be amazing, and different, not too obvious. The reason I liked this part of the convo, was because over Christmas when I had some spare time I ended up producing a charismas card and it was so obvious and looking back at it, it was rubbish. If I was an art director and someone send me that I wouldn't have thought twice about looking at it again. I just thought it was quite an interesting way to approach art directors etc.

Website

www.rebeccahadfield.co.uk

Here is a link to my website.
I keep playing around with different layouts but the one I have kept atm I like because of the shape of the thumbs of my work, seem to fit really well. Kept it quite simple looking atm but it will get better with time!
Enjoy!

Evaluation of FMP

I decided to base my Final Major Project on the Grimm's Fairy Tales. Then Penguin/Puffin design awards 2012 competition was my starting point for this project, as the puffin competition was to create a book cover for Grimm's Fairy Tales, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. After researching and thinking about my project a little more, I decided to do a series of book covers, the other covers would be for other stories by the Grimm brothers, after researching I decided to do create covers for 2 of the better known stories, Rapunzel and Cinderella.

I tried to split my time between the 3 covers equally. I started off with the Rapunzel cover, creating images of a fairy tale nature. Rapunzel being a fairy tale that would attract more girls than boys, I tried to use the more feminine colours. Though after researching other covers for Rapunzel I saw that most of them were very similar so I wanted to do something different, something more eye-catching, I then looked at the story from a darker point of view, which is where the skeletons came from. I always tend to struggle with typography, so with this first book cover I tried my best with typography, trying to it with the image instead of having it look like I just randomly placed the type anywhere. I thought what I had done worked quite well and I was proud.

I also started to do some screen printing, started to experiment with other things instead of just sitting at a computer and doing everything digitally, I also started to do some paper cutting to create shapes for certain elements. These worked well and I was pleased to have done something a little different than usual and as I work with texture some of the screen prints came out lovely. I also started to work with other materials such as fabric, which I then made into some pillows. I never usually do things like this with my work, but I think the context of what I was doing is perfect for things like this.

For the next book cover, I focused on the main Grimm's Fairy Tales one, again I took a darker approach to it and I didn't want to use pick one story and illustrate it, I wanted to include things from a few different stories. The main focus for this cover were some of the evil characters, such as the Wolf (Little Red Riding Hood), Evil Witch/Old Lady (Hansel and Gretel), and the Evil Queen (Snow White). I think I work well with creating characters with are animals, but I have always struggled with human faces and features. But as I wanted all 3 characters to be a similar shape, this helped me create fun and simple characters.

Both of these images took me about 10 weeks to complete. Having around 4/5 Weeks left after I did these and created 2 pillows. I started my Cinderella cover, which I was very proud of as I completed this in just over 1 week. Using simple ideas and strong typography as I have done for the other 2. All 3 of my covers work well together, using the same view points and all having nice strong colour pallets and typography. I feel they work really well as a set of covers, as you can tell they are part of a 'series' and are done by the same illustrator.

Overall I have created 3 book covers, including fronts, backs and spines. Some pillows and other things such as notebook covers and book marks. I am overall very pleased with my outcomes. I have done more than I usually would for a project, instead of just doing the main things I have set for myself, I have pushed them aside and done a few more things and experimented a lot more.

If I had even more time for my FMP, I would have liked to have experimented with different ways of working even more and try new things and possibly do even more book covers that would sit nicely with the others I had produced.

Cinderella on Textured Paper

 

Playing around with some textured paper, I printed my Cinerella cover onto some paper with orange petals pressed into it, this one works really well with the Cinderella due to the petals as they go with the colouring of my cover and also there are some leaves in my image which work with the petals. I also printed the others on textured papers but they didn't look as good as this one. Works really well, very pleased!

Fmp part 3: Cinderella

Book Cover number 3: Once again using the same style and view points as my other 2 book covers (Grimm's and Rapunzel), I worked in very similar ways so the 3 would look like part of a set. I did this one in just over a week and I think this is the best. I think the colours work really well together and each element has had much attentioned paid to it. I have also been playing around with shadows (which for some reason don't show up that well when the image has been flattened and reduced in size, but nevermind). I feel that I am getting better and better at typography every time I do it. I used to hate doing typography as I have never been confident with it as I always thought everything looked either rubbish or it just didn't fit in the image I had created. But with my fmp I think i have worked quite well with it. I think the typography in this image is very strong and bold. I really liked my idea for this book cover, alot of cinderella images and book covers include the carraige that Cinderella rides in, but I decided instead of just creating a carraige or just a pumkin that I would have the pumkin evolving/chaning into a carraige, so it's still a pumpkin with wheels. At first I wasn't sure what to do with the back cover, but I thought about having something to represent Cinderella's life, how she is a kind of slave to her step mother and step sisters. All of the swirls and leavey patterens give the cover a sort of magical feel. Really pleased with this image, next I am going to do some screen printing of the pumpkin/carraige and possibly make a tote bag or another pillow. I am also going to make a poster out of this cover.

TWD Accountants

So yesterday (9th Feb) Chris and Sarah from TWD Accountants from across the road, came in to talk to us about starting our own business, and about become self employed, self employed can offer us more freedom and flexibility.
All the information given was very confusing! but they said we could pop in and see them any time and they gave us a discount card for if me need an accountant in the future, which was very nice of them!
They gave us some tips on starting a business, starting with making a business plan, including things such as market research, which is tings such as, target markets, the compeition, what is different about your company etc. Finance plans, what you hope the business will achieve, it's advantages, how things will run? this team and other working members. As business plan for when possibly going to banks for loans etc, must include a paragraph about each section.
You would need to work out how much money you would need to start things up, for things such as hiring staff, equipment and studio/building etc
To finance your business you can get bank loans, get people to invest in your business and you should always look for professional help! You could also contact your local job center as they can also help.
They also said they we should always keep recipts etc, just incase! even if they're online recipts and bank statements.
After taking also this imformation in and also information about TAX income etc, it was pretty scary! I didn't understand alot of it, but have time to get the hang of it. Starting a business up seems like something tricky, I don't think I could handle it on my own, It would be great to possibly do a split partnership with someone who I work well with and trust, that could be a great investment, but for now I think i'm heading for the self employed, free lancer! But you never know what might happen in the future!

Working with Art Directors/Agencies

Ian did a presentation on agencies and working with art directs etc, which I thought was very helpful (thanks Ian!)
It is always good to collaborate with other designers/agencies/clients and gallery owners and to deffinatly be doing self initiated projects, it is good to be adaptable and versile, work in new media and carry on experimenting! exchange your skills and carry on elarning things off your work partners/other illustrators. Keep supporting each other.
John Ferry said " Check list, Concept, Colour, Craftmenship, Contemporary style, Consistancy, Commitment and Confidence!
It is good to be consistant, some clients from looking at your work and know exactly what they want from you, so it is sometimes good to be fairly predictable. Always show commitment, any time you do work, get it online! on your blog website, keep people informed with what you are doing! This shows that you care about your work and want people to see it and having confidence about your won work makes clients trust you a little more, they will know that you will get the job done!
There are lots of skills to have to become a good free lance illustrator other than image making, things such as good manners, time management, networking skills etc, etc.
When working with art directors, we should always ask cetain questions about the commission, just incase they don't mention it to you, always ask for sixe of the image, colours, print run, fee and most importantly the deadline! You have to make sure you are able to do this piece of work by the deadline you are set and if not, be honest and tell them! They may give you some extra time. Also find out when roughs need to be sent off for approval.
Don't assume that they are more expierenced than you! (but don't be arragant)
And ask if they have any ideas that you could work with or if there is any way they imagine it to look.
Always work like a team player, try not to p**s anyone off! be flexable but don't be a pushover, as you don't want people to satrt walking all voer you and giving you impossible tasks.
Add notes to roughs, just incase things are not clear and always accept changes to your work, and always keep them informed of any problems, if it is problems with the work or time mangement.
Copyright!
Anything you do is yours! simple as, but always watch out for some agencies/companies that want your work for themselves, always read the contract as you can always say no, and tell them you don't agree with certain things.
Try to avoid signing all your copyright over as this can do yourself out of alot of money!
There is no copyright on style, but if you see your work somewhere you shouldn't see it, sort it out! Though if there has been 5 significant changes to a piece of work you feel is yours then there isn't alot you can do about it unfortunatly!
Working for free?
My opinion of this is that working for free is possibly a good idea at first, it could help build your portfolio and show that you are commited to what you are doing. But I probably would not do free work for the same people more than once as they might think you are abit of a pushover and will do antyhing asked. It is always a good diea to do free things while you are still studying.
You always base your free on the lenth of time the work will take, the print run, exposure, profile of the client, how much you want to do it and the going rate!
Always use a proper invoice! and always keep yourself a copy. Don't be affraid to call the accounts office just incase you haven't been paid ontime!
The pro's of being represented by an agent: They promote you, they do the leg work, they find you as much work as they can, represent you in toher countires, usually secure a higher fee for you, nervous lazy clients tent to use them, they invoice the clients for you (they do the tricky stuff!), they can act as a filter between you and the client.
I think I would like to be represented by an agent, as I'm scared of all the tricky business, invoices etc, but I suppose I would get used to it! But there are some cons, the biggest one being that they take 20%-33% of your money! (boo!)
It is best advised to only have one agent in the UK but you can have one somewhere else in the world!
But it is always best to try get some work published yourself before trying to get an agent.
I am so far happy with my promotional skills, my portfolio is getting better and better as time goes on, I am building my website which is looking pretty good so far (www.cargocollective.com/rebeccahadfield) I will be buying the URL soon. I am going to soon send off for some new business cards as I have a new number and a more professional email address and some new images to put on them, and I will be taking these to london to leave around! :)

Kotori

http://vimeo.com/17672714

this animation is similar to something I would like to do with my work, lots of shape and easy movements, i think i would possibly like to do most things digitally as my work, works better this way.

PES

Pes animation are very unusual and interesting, I always get sucked in when watching a clip done by them, the usefulness of objects is amazing and they make it work so well, get imaginative ideas and sound effects

Vincent by Tim Burton

As you all now already know, I am a huge fan of Tim Burton's art work and films, including his animations, this is a short animation he did with Rick Heinrichs. Along with his other animations, The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride, Burton makes models of his characters and photographs them to create movements, some of the models are tiny robots which is a very interesting way of doing an animation, making 3d models aod cut outs for his backgrounds. This is a short story about a boy with an exciting imagination, who flips back a forth from reality to a fantasy where he is Vincent Price. Though my work is nothing like Tim Burton's and my animation (if I succed) Will hopefully be a colour one unlike this dark mysterious one, Vincent has always been an inspiration to me.

Screen

This is a short video directed and produced by my friend Theo Kirkpatrick, it is a piece he did for his FMP for a media course he did at The Manchester College, It is about an interest in gaming is taken too far, it is a mix of real life film and animation, interestingly done and put together and is also very fun and cleverly done.



I love the simple shapes and characters and they way they move, very simple and not too fast or confusing and I also like some of the fading effects used (when the wizard fades and dissapears) very interesting

Manchester Museum Event, 28th Jan

So, got to the museum for about 9:45 thinking, "i'm not going to enjoy today!" but once it got going, I had a great time! Me and Rosie, both the scorpion girls, were sat together and at first, no children wanted to come to us! One child just looked at us and cried! eeek. But children came and went, some getting a little bored of colouring and cutting out, so we helped out alot, and so did the parents! I think through the day there was one child who sat and did the whole thing all by her self. Some teachers and parents even asked if they could take a sheet home to do there or photocopy for other children, which was good :)
I also had made little scorpion stickers and rosie made badges, the kids went crazy for them! They had all gone by the end of the day. I think I had 40 activity sheets and there were too left by the end, lots and lots of rainbow colour scorpions were made!

It was a very fun day over all, wouldn't mind doing something like that again :) success!

How The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our favourite and most widely read children’s book:

Found this interesting Article on children's book, thanks to Chloe Jones.

How The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our favourite and most widely read children’s book: Cinderella, Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and Spot the Dog also make the top 10!

By Daily Mail Reporter

He’s been munching through fruit, cake and sausages for more than 40 years…but children still haven’t lost their appetite for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Eric Carle’s 1969 tale about a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly is the most read children’s book in Britain, a study revealed yesterday.

Researchers estimate it is read an average of nine times a year by the nation’s 5.5million primary school children.

Nation's favourite: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, first released in 1969, is still British primary school children's most popular book, with nine reads each year

The second most popular book is the Cinderella fairytale, read around 8.7 times a year, according to the poll of 2,000 parents.

The report, commissioned by the Early Learning Centre, also found parents actively encourage their children to read books they enjoyed as youngsters, prompting the comeback of a string of classics.

Popular: Books about Postman Pat, and his trusty cat Jess, came in at fifth in the poll with 7.49 reads each year

Yesterday Nicki Tracey, Head of Brand Communications for the Early Learning Centre said: 'A huge amount of parents are familiar with the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and it’s a book that has obviously been passed down through the generations.

'It’s great to see so many books on this list that parents have obviously enjoyed themselves as children and as a result encouraged their own children to read and love as well.

'It’s especially good to see that so many parents and children enjoy reading these stories that they re-read the same books over and over.

'Reading boosts children’s development, teaches them new words and helps them discover and learn about the world.'

The third most read books were Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men series followed by the Peppa Pig books based on the Channel 5 TV show and John Cunliffe’s Postman Pat adventures.

Parents and children read about Postman Pat’s adventures an average of 7.5 times a year while The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson’s animated modern fantasy about a fictitious monster who lurks in the woods, is likely to be read at least seven times a year.

THE MOST READ CHILDREN’S BOOKS

(The figures are based number of times each book is read a year per household)

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle 8.85

2. Cinderella - Various 8.71

3. Mr Men - Roger Hargreaves 8.41

4. Peppa Pig - Various 7.72

5. Postman Pat - John Cunliffe 7.49

6. The Gruffalo - Julia Donaldson 7.48

7. Fireman Sam - Various 7.43

8. Spot the Dog - Eric Hill 7.39

9. Biff, Chip and Kipper - Roderick and Cynthia Rider Hunt 7.31

10. Horrid Henry - Francesca Simon 7.25

Roald Dahl’s 1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dr Seuss’s 1957 book The Cat in the Hat and the 1980s Spot the Dog series also made the top 20.

The study also found most parents said their children picked up a book and either read to themselves or got their parents to read it every day.

And ninety per cent claim their children read or were read to at least three times a week.

Parents also agreed that sons and daughters had very different tastes when it came to their reading habits but both preferred adventure stories.

One in five parents admitted to bribing their children to read by offering them pocket money.

Technology has also had an impact on how children read with more than a quarter of parents saying their child had read a story on an e-reader.

The poll also found 12 per cent of parents said their offspring liked reading books based on films or TV shows.

I thought this article was quite interesting as I have decided to create a book cover for Cinderella as part of my FMP and to find out that it is one of the most read children's books has given me another push to work even hard to produce a new cover for the story with out repeating what has already been done, creating new ideas and something different in style. Wanting to keep the cover child friendly, i also want to make it quite dark as most of the covers I have seen for Cinderella are all happy and magical, but the story also has dark and saddening plots and events. I do want to keep the illustrations quite literal as it is a children's book and going metaphorical or too illiterate might make it too confusing.

It is also nice to see that Biff, Chip and Kipper, one of the series of books I used to read as a child, still in the top ten most read books! It was one of the well known series of books when I was a kid and it's good to see that children are still reading them, considering children's tv shows have completely changed, I did not think many of the books I read as a kid would still be well known, Postman pat has always been a favourite of children, but the tv show has completely changed, it is just not the same anymore.

The Mr. Men series as still as good as ever, simple shaped characters that are so lovable!

Maggie Li

Textures, Textures, Textures!!! I like that the shapes of some of these are not perfect, result of screen printing i'm guessing! Really need to start screen printing! I think it will work really well with some of my work and i will get results similar to these works.

Frann Preston-Gannon

Frann Preston-Gannon's skeleton work gave me an idea for part of my Rapunzel book cover, as I wanted to illustrate all the men that have tried to save her from the tower, and I want to illustrate this by adding skeletons to my imagery and Frann Preston-Gannon's work inspired this idea. These are the skeletons that I have created so far, but I am thinking of screen printing these, as I think that if the ink runs a little bit it may give a nice feel to them and then they will not look so 'perfect' as skeletons are usually rotting and not perfect shapes. So screen printing might give a nice textured feel to them.
I also like the backgrounds on the top two skeleton images (coffin ones) having different shades and strips of one colour instead of one colour in the background, gives more depth and patterened feel to the imagery and makes the lighter colours stand out more.

Alice Lickens

Alice Lickens is a freelance illustrator & designer based in London also working as one fifth of Zombie Collective.
Lovely use of textures and shape, as i've mentioned in earlier posts this is what I work well with so I like to look at illustrators/artists that do this well, that will inspire me and my work and help me spark new ideas and possibly new ways of working and development.

I like the use of pattern and shape in the "atoms" pieces, they are unusual but it is nice to see some sciency illustrations!

Kancho

A random shopping trip to ASDA, found these cute little biscuits! with cute little illustrations on the packaging.

Nicola Slater

Unfortunatly, I wasn't able to attend the talk by Nicola Slater, but as she is a professional childrens book illustrator I had a little nosey at some of her work.
I really like her work, the use of shape and texture is inspiring as I am becoming very comfortable using these, her child like animal characters are so much fun and child friendly, such simple shapes make very detailed characters.

I also love her typography, she seems to have many different styles of typography, and they all seem to somehow fit in perfectly with her imagery, even though they are done in a different style. I always try to make my typorgraphy in the same style as my imagery, but I can never get it right, maybe I should try something completely different and fit it in some how, in a similar way to Nicola,






She is a very interesting illustrator, her work inspires me and makes me feel good about my own work.
As I am quite interested in childrens book illustration, I may email Nicola and see if she would take a look at some of my work and give me some advice.

Her use of colour is also interesting, nothing to bright and alot of pastle colours seem to be used which work quite nicely and are not too bold and taking over the imagery.
I also like her use of shading and shadows, which is something I don't usually think about when illustrating, but when drawing I also add lots of shading, maybe this is something more I could add to my illustrations to give them a little more depth and make them more interesting.

My FMP

For my FMP, I have decided to take part in the Penguin 2012 competition, doing a book cover for Puffin's Grimm's Fairy tales! But obviously this isn't enough for a 16 week project, So I have decided to do 2 more book covers for a couple of the well known grimm's fairy tales, the ones I have chosen to illustrate are Rapunzel and Cinderella.

Along with the book covers, I am hoping to make some book marks using similar imagery which I will create.

As Rapunzel and Cinderella are both princess storys which attract little girls, I was hoping to also make things such as birthday cards and wrapping paper, creating characters and patterns.

I don't want to be too literal with my imagery, but again I don't want to go completely metaphorical or off top as the books are ment for younge children so they need to illustrate what the stories represent.

The main Grimm's book cover will be more of a challenge as I will need to encorporate differeont elements from a few stories as there are many different ones, but I think I will mostly work with the more well known ones, such as Tom Thumb, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumplstiltskin, etc.

I want my 3 book covers to have similar imagery, showing that they are part of a set of covers, so you can tell they were done by the same illustrator, being me of course.