My Favourite Illustrated Books: Study Task 4

Fiction

• I was drawn to this book because of it’s hand made quality. I love of the scanned in textures that the artist has used as well how they have been assembled so that the pages are interesting and look tactile yet simple. I also love the pop up element of the book. It really lifts the illustrations by bringing them into the viewer’s space. Each time I turned the page, I was excited to see what was going to pop out. 
• The use use of pop out, colourful, simplistic illustrations also works really well to aid its function. This is because it is attractive to children. In addition to this the use of colour and friendly monsters to represent different emotions (referenced in the text) works well. This is because it gives children something literal to associate abstract feeling with, aiding their understanding of them. It is not only a beautiful fiction book but it also teaches children a valuable life lesson.

Zine

• I was drawn to this zine because of the messy hand made quality that the front cover and the pages had to them. I love the fact that some of the pages even had pencil smudges on them. It feels very hand made and personal, like pages of a sketchbook. It was strange singing something so unrefined, which is reproduced. 
• I also love the how weird and twisted the story was. It was really unexpected and it amused me. It is not something which you would find in your everyday picture book (but something which might appeal late teen/ young adult audience you might find at a gene fare).
• In this zine, each step of the simple story is illustrated fully. The text just exists simply to make the intensions of the characters clear. 

Picture Book

• I was surprised by how much I enjoyed flicking through this book as I am usually drawn weirder more quirky illustrations. The traditional landscape watercolours just have a strange eerie quality to them. They are so simple yet so well crafted and intimate. 
• The illustrations here don’t exist to communicate a message but their beauty is their function. This allows them to work presented alone, unsupported by text. This is something which is so difficult to achieve and that I have not seen a lot of it int the past.
• This is a picture book for adults , something which you son't often come across. The simplistic beauty of these images also means that they can be appreciated by a wide audience. 

Non-fiction

• My love of documentary illustration drew me to this book last year and it is where I discovered the work of Olivier Kugler, one of my favourite illustrators. It is put together so well and it was really interesting to read about the journey of each of the illustrators to creating a finished documentary drawing. It is a book which is not only interesting and informative but beautifully put together. I loved looking at the artist's sketchbooks as I personally have a tendency to be drawn to quite unfinished looking work.
• This books audience is people of all ages who have an interest in documentary illustration. It is a useful research source to them because it not only reflects different ways of image making but different ways of thinking. It takes the viewer inside the illustrator's head. 
• This book is about 50/50 text and image. The text explores the different illustrators' different practices and how they like to work practically in addition to providing stories of past experiences. Image then works to give a visual example of the illustrator's working methods and process.