briefing

I already knew which of the options I wanted to choose before the briefing, I would like to illustrate children's books and this brief provides me with an opportunity to have a lot of creative freedom. This freedom is really good and also daunting, although I knew I wanted to work on 'Publishing for v

children' I did not have any set ideas for themes or narratives. The briefing really helped me, I like the idea of making a book that is educational but not in the traditional sense, I would like to try and tackle life lessons that we encounter growing up. I want to look at the book 'The Dead Bird' illustrated by Christian Robinson that tackles the subject of death. This is something we all have to deal with but is rarely mentioned in children's books and it must have been very difficult to successfully and appropriately deal with the subject. I would like to try and illustrate a theme as important as this one, something that is challenging but has potential to be thought provoking, educational and appealing to both children and adults.

Its was mentioned in the briefing that it would probably be a bad idea to try and write the story ourselves. It would take a lot of time and would not count towards our mark. I would like to illustrate a book with little to no text if possible so I want to find a subject or idea that is quite simple but captures emotion. We were given some ideas of where to find stories to illustrate during the briefing, I would like to find something that is relevant to children growing up today, something that reflects modern life. I will need to consider whether the subject is appropriate and whether it will translate into other cultures. Of the list we were shown in the briefing I like the idea of basing my illustrations on song lyrics, specifically hip hop lyrics. There are a lot of hip hop tracks that are based around themes that are not appropriate but I know a few that are based on life lessons and teaching, they are community orientated, they talk about overcoming difficulties and maintain moral values where other people don't. This could be a very interesting direction to take this project.