My plan for the big brief is to illustrate and produce an educational book about dinosaurs for children, possibly 5-7. The tutorial was useful as it made clear how much more contextual and real-life the brief needs to be - it isn't just a uni project, its about actually trying to get the product out there. Some suggestions he gave were:
- with a 5-7-age group, having more of a narrative might be more appropriate as a book full of facts and figures can be quite daunting. It will be more appealing if a story is told through the eyes of someone/something within the book e.g. an egg/fossil/dinosaur that is present throughout all the changes
- tone of voice is very important, especially for children's books - maybe try and find a writer?
- where will the book exist? in schools, museums, charities? will it be something quite expensive or cheap?
- there is a forum at the natural history museum linking writers to books
- get in contact with natural history museum or educators and find out what they want from a book for that age group - what is appropriate?
- think about promoting the book - could do readings in schools/museums or possibly animate it with a voice over? (like the book 'the gruffalo')
- will there be more books - a whole series? where can this idea be taken
- point of sale - promotional material, event (a reading?), posters, stands
- start contacting people - publishers, editors, writers etc. will be more useful than other illustrators in terms of getting work, they are the kind of people you want to be inviting to the end of year show
I got lots of useful advice, I now need to think more about this big brief - what age I want to aim it at, the type of book it will be, who I should be contacting etc.
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