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My diploma project looked at children's literature from a child's point of view. It was based on a series of workshops with children in which picture books and animation films were developed. The objective of the project was to develop a series of picture-books and animation films for young readers based on poems which are used as tools for language learning.
The first half of my project consisted of a series of exploratory workshops conducted with a mixed group of children during which the children wrote, designed and animated a story with sound and music added in post production.
In the second half of my project, I selected a poem to illustrate from a compilation of published children’s poems. To find out details of contemporary Indian children’s literature, I visited the Bookaroo children’s festival and the World Book Fair at Delhi. I was in search of a narrative idea that would suit the picture book form. My chief constraint was cost: the paper and printing cost had to be brought down as much as possible. Hence, the art style developed was simple and minimalistic. The poem went through a few storyboards and rough dummies and the characters were developed alongside. The final dummy was created in 8.5x7 size. My target audience were school children in their early teens.
In course of this project, I discovered that the primary purpose of illustration, which is to communicate, is often compromised. The literal illustration which merely depicts what the text says severely suppresses the reader’s imagination. The feedback that my illustrations do not look like ‘Indian’ led me to probe the definition of ‘Indian’ visual style. |