Anna's Online Journal!

After a few minor tweaks, I have now completed my book!

I realised on the blurb that I had called George an elephant instead of a giraffe so I had to quickly change that. I also moved some of the text around to make the layout slightly less repetitive.

Here is my final book:

Today I realised that I do not have a blurb on my book. Before creating my own blurb, I thought it would be best to look at some blurbs on real children’s books in Waterstones:

Similarities with the blurbs:

• Brief plot synopsis with cliffhanger to invite you to read
• A character or image from the book
• Barcode
• Publisher
• Clear grid layout
• Interesting colours and patterns
• Range of traditional and handwriting style fonts
• Sometimes a box around the text

My blurb:

• Bright colours
• Fun font
• Small plot synopsis
• Box around information

Updated:

After I had finished placing my characters, I decided that my book looks a little boring and decided that I needed to add some more detail to my pages. To do this, I decided that I needed to add some backgrounds to my pages so that it is not just white.

Here is one of the backgrounds I added:

I took the tree from one of my previously made backgrounds and created some clouds to make some interest and show that the giraffe’s head is very high up.

I noticed early on that children’s books either have very plain backgrounds or very detailed ones so I went halfway and created some scenery but only vectors.

Today I have finished a rough draft of the rest of my book (not including the blurb on the back).

I have carried on with the 6 grid system and have involved the rest of the characters other than the snake as I didn’t think he fitted.

Here is the rest of my book:

I thought it would be more amusing for the giraffe to be at a different angle, looking down at the lion instead of being at the same level as him. This is because in reality, a giraffe is far taller than a lion and I wanted my story to be somewhat realistic.

Instead of just showing another illustration of George, I decided to cover this page in paint to make it appear as though he got it all over the page whilst painting his spots. This is like something a child reading the book would do and I thought also added some interest to the book.

This is what all of the pages on my book look like so far.

Now that I have completed all of my characters, the only thing I had left to do was put my actual book together. I used a 6×6 grid as I felt this gave me a large enough grid to work with. Here are the pages that I have created so far:

I am not sure about backgrounds yet – these might not be the final designs. I am also not sure if the designs are a little boring on the first 4 pages so will look into this too.

I am happy with the grid and text positioning though. The last 2 pages also look nicer with the background and more interesting features on the pages.