Front cover

^First front cover design - looked too computerised and didn't fit the style of book i was representing.

^second front cover design - looked like a history book but was too adult like and wasn't appropriate for children.

^current front cover design - although not finished yet this design is appropriate for the target audience and fits in with the style of the rest of the e-book. I wanted to use a character who isn't included in the e-book so i used King Henry the VIII as he is well known and a big personality so i thought it would work well having him on the front cover almost announcing these three other people. 

development of designs

Each individual page has now been fully rendered. I need to finish front cover and then the additional sheet with Shakespeare quotes to go along with that page. 

Origami

In todays lecture we looked at paper engineering and origami. We were showed tutorials of how to make different origami animals/objects. This lecture help us to understand the different add ons which books can include and for me it emphasised how much better physical books were to online books. 

Below are my attempts at some origami.

^crown

^bear

After having a go at some origami we looked at users testing and just how important it is. Before this lecture i didn't think user testing was as important as it is. I knew it had its place and that it was helpful to get feedback from your target audience but after this lecture it really ingrained into me that it had so much positives. From a business point of view i thought it wouldn't be economically sound to churn out loads of prototypes to get user tested but we were shown some stats and a lot of companies made money by getting things user tested and then were able to alter things based on the feedback. This meant the product  was more successful. If they hadn't have had user testing then they wouldn't have got the feedback and therefore the product wouldn't have been a success. 

As a student it isn't feasible to go out with prototypes and get users feedback but it is feasible to make one prototype and a bunch of questionnaires to go along with it. Questionnaires are the most statistically reliable and mot cost effective way of getting user feedback and something i will definitely be doing with my designs. 

Tutorials and Feedback

Last session we had tutorials and feedback from our lecturers. We went through our sketchbooks and tried to get our ideas across. After going through sketchbooks we went through my blog to show how up to date it was and how much info was on there.

The feedback i got from this lecture was really helpful. I found that the front cover which i had done was a bit to adult like and although was lovely and fitted the genre of history it didn't fit 'children's books'. After this feedback i went home and looked into children books a bit more and looked at the colours normally used. Most of the books i looked at all use flat colours and not much shading or detail. This is because children don't really care for detail or shading they just want to see colourful and bold images which they can easily recognise.

Books i looked at:

Another bit of feedback i got was that the E-book is A4 and i was designing for A3. I feel i got carried away with designing and forgot about the brief specifications. I went home and re-designed the pages to fit A4 portrait.

Below are the rough page layouts:

^Handout as part of the Capt. Cook page. The children will map out their journey to school on the this template. 

^Capt. Cook page. Showing his voyages and some info with gaps the children have to fill in. 

^Handout sheet as part of the Queen Elizabeth i page. The objects which the children have to use to try and save Elizabeth from the tower.

^Queen Elizabeth i page. The scroll will host info on Elizabeth with key points blanked out and the children have to find them out.

 ^William Shakespeare page. Again will have some info on Shakespeare and again the key points will be blank and the children fill it in. It will also have the one task written out on there. 

I now need to get these designs on screen and start adding colour and type to them. I also need to re-design the front cover to look more child friendly.  

Initial Ideas

Having gone away and thought about my three chosen significant people in history i have come up with some initial ideas. I want to come up with an E-book and activity which gets the children's creativity and minds working independently rather than them sat listening and going through the motions.

I am going to do one activity per person, each one can be used of a main activity or a starter and each can stand alone for a lesson or be used as part of another session.
Some activities i have come up with include a illustrated tower with Elizabeth i trapped at the top. The children have to try and come up with a way to free Elizabeth i using the objects which will be provided in a key. The aim of this activity is to get the child's creative juices flowing and try and push them to come up with an innovative way to free elizabeths I. For example some of the objects may not be first seen as helpful but when used with an imagination can be the perfect tool.
Another activity i have thought of would be for the children to see the three voyages which Captain James Cook went on and then draw up their own map of their journey to school. I first thought to have the children draw a map of the world and have them map out where in the world they would want to visit but by using their journey to school it adds a personal touch as they go on this journey near enough everyday and everyones will be slightly different. Also it's something they will then think about the next time they go on that journey and could get their parents involved.
My final activity would be for William Shakespeare. The children would get given a list of or the teacher could read out potential quotes from Shakespeare. If they were handed out the children would get into teams and place the quotes they think are Shakespeare one side and ones they think aren't Shakespeare to the other side. If the teacher read out the quotes the children would do the task as a class. This is solely down to the teacher's interpretation and wether or not they think their class would be better suited to doing it as a class or as small teams.

Some initial rough drawings: 

Queen Elizabeth 1 and King Henry Viii

World map showing Cook's three voyages

A list of quotes from various Shakespeare plays.

Added Features

Types of Added Features in Children's Books: 

• Paper engineering
• Pull tabs
• Flaps/folds
• Pop up's
• Die cuts 
• Textures
• Specialised inks
• Sound (digitised sound chips)
• Stickers
• Crayons
• Wipe clean
• Puppets 

Calm Down Boris! - by Sam Lloyd 

^Added feature - interactive puppet

The added feature in this book is an interactive puppet which is the story's main character. Each page has the puppet in different environments and positions with different facial expressions. The added feature engages the child as it literally brings the books character to life. this book uses sight and touch to enhance the child's learning and also gives the child the control over the character which adds a sense of responsibility to the child's experience. 

This is a very appropriate way to present the books content as the whole story is about the character Boris so by making Boris interact-able and controllable it creates a new level of the story which will keep the child engaged and focused.  

How Children Learn?

Babies and Learning


Children are enquisitive and eager to learn but they do have short attention spans so learning has o be fun and engaging.  Psychologists first believed that a baby’s mind was a blank canvas on which experiences could be imprinted on.

A number of different methodologies arose which challenge this theory.

3 Examples:

• Non nutritive sucking - Babies may suck their thumb, fingers, pacifier, or other inanimate objects such as a blanket or toy

• Habituation - Babies learn to stop responding to a stimulus which is no longer biologically relevant

• Visual Expectation - Babies can use their expectations about the world to rapidly shape their developing brains

learning through the senses 

Baby's explore most things through the 5 senses; taste, touch, sight, smell and sound. This is the easiest way for a baby to explore and gain knowledge of an object because it allows them closer access to the object. 

3 recognised approaches to improving a child's learning:

• Building on pre-existing knowledge: Taking the familiar in order to explain the unfamiliar. 
• Transferring Knowledge: Applying the learned information to a real life situation 
• Memory Strategies: Repetition or rhyme Summarising or Grouping

Learning Types:

• Auditory Learning - through sound
• Visual Learning  - through sight
• Kinaesthetic Learning - through doing

It is best when teaching to use a variety of these learning types to ensure you reach out every child.

What type of learner am i? 

I think i am primarily a Kinaesthetic learner because through past experiences i have always learnt best when doing; i always say the best way to learn is to do. Wether it be sport, music or lectures, i find information is best retained when i am physically doing an activity related to what we are learning. I also think i am a visual learner as i like to look at diagrams etc. before hand and then go into doing an activity, just so i have visual data in my head of what we are doing. 

I find it difficult to learn in quiet environments as i then tend to lack concentration. I like to learn in busy and interactive settings as i feel it engages my attention more. 

How Children Learn?

Babies and Learning

Psychologists first believed that a baby’s mind was a blank canvas on which experiences could be imprinted on.

A number of different methodologies arose which challenge this theory.

3 Examples:

• Non nutritive sucking - Babies may suck their thumb, fingers, pacifier, or other inanimate objects such as a blanket or toy

• Habituation - Babies learn to stop responding to a stimulus which is no longer biologically relevant

• Visual Expectation - Babies can use their expectations about the world to rapidly shape their developing brains

learning through the senses 

Baby's explore most things through the 5 senses; taste, touch, sight, smell and sound. This is the easiest way for a baby to explore and gain knowledge of an object because it allows them closer access to the object. 

3 recognised approaches to improving a child's learning:

• Building on pre-existing knowledge: Taking the familiar in order to explain the unfamiliar. 
• Transferring Knowledge: Applying the learned information to a real life situation 
• Memory Strategies: Repetition or rhyme Summarising or Grouping

Learning Types:

• Auditory Learning - through sound
• Visual Learning  - through sight
• Kinaesthetic Learning - through doing

What type of learner am i? 

I think i am primarily a Kinaesthetic learner because through past experiences i have always learnt best when doing; i always say the best way to learn is to do. Wether it be sport, music or lectures, i find information is best retained when i am physically doing an activity related to what we are learning. I also think i am a visual learner as i like to look at diagrams etc. before hand and then go into doing an activity, just so i have visual data in my head of what we are doing. 

I find it difficult to learn in quiet environments as i then tend to lack concentration. I like to learn in busy and interactive settings as i feel it engages my attention more. 

Photo's i took at the National Archives, London

^Queen Elizabeth 1

^William Shakespeare's will

These were two of the pictures i took of two of the artefacts we seen at the National Archives.  

National Archives Trip

For our main assessed brief we will be creating an E-Book for the National Archives, London. The book is about significant people in British history and will be used by teachers all across the country to teach their class about these three significant people.

To start we were given a list of 10 people who the TNA (The National Archives) thought to be the most significant people in British history. Our job is to pick three of these ten and then create an activity  book which will engage children aged 5-7 yrs.

I found the trip very rewarding and helpful as it allowed me the opportunity to speak with the clients in person ad get their wants/needs and what they don't want put into this E-Book. It was important for me to meet with the clients at TNA because i felt a bit in the dark to start with and i wasn't a 100% confident with the brief. All that lack of confidence has gone now which i am glad to say and i now feel fully confident to deliver an engaging and exciting book for TNA.

After some research and debate the 3 significant people i am choosing are as follows:

 1 - William Shakespeare
 2 - Captain. William Cook
 3 - Elizabeth 1 of England

I have chosen these three people as they are all roughly similar times in history and i want to showcase how diverse they were and how different their lives were.

 Captain James Cook

 Queen Elizabeth 1

William Shakespeare

Art Style's

Information books – 9-11 yr olds  

From ages 9 – 11 yrs old I think children want to be taken a bit more seriously and therefore like reading books which look more 'adult like'. Still plenty of images and bold fonts but there will be more text for the child to read. The layout will be more sophisticated with the colour pallet having a much bigger range. A series of books which suit this are the Doodling Kindersley books. These books were the highlight of my childhood and where i learnt most stuff from. these books make the child feel older and more like their older siblings/parents or teachers as they are reading something which looks and feels like a real book. 

Another type of book children of this age will like, are fierce looking books – animal books about dangerous species etc. From tv shows such as steve Irwin and deadly 60. This 'fear factor' gets children excited as most the species they read or hear about from these books are very exotic and might not have come across them before.

Picture book 3-6 yr olds

Picture books for 3-6 yr olds will vary quite a bit as a lot changes in the three years from 3 to 6. Saying this though there will be some characteristics which will carry on. These characteristics will include a lot of images and little text. These books tend to be very illustrative to try and engage the child and keep them interested. The colours will be bright but shading and texture will start to be introduced unlike the toddlers books where it is all block colours. texture i feel is a massive part to picture books as it adds depth to the page, which helps create a secret atmosphere in which the child is a part of.

A book which best suits these years is the Gruffalo. The Gruffalo is a book which every child will remember and it's not because of the story which makes us remember, it's the illustrations and just how intriguing and interesting they are. You get sucked into an imaginary world, full of all these odd but amazing looking things. 

Toddlers first objects books

Toddlers first object books will be very simple and bright. The colours will be block colours so the images are easily distinguished. The font will be big, bold and the kearning will be quite big to make it easy as possible for the toddler to see. The art style is quite generic for toddler picture books as you are limited to what you can do and how much detail you can put into the books as you don't want to overload the toddler and cause sensory confusion. You want the toddler to be as infused as possible, keeping him/her engaged throughout the whole book and using bright colours is a great way to do this.