Category Archives: white space

Sky High

13 December 2012

16 Comments

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by Germano Zullo, illustrated by Albertine

(Originally published as Les Gratte-Ciel in Switzerland in 2011.)

This book was just published in the US in late November, but I have had my claws on it since this summer. I know.

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But! It’s so fantastic that I didn’t think it was fair to show it until you had a chance to get your paws on it, too.

And I highly recommend snagging this one. It would make a perfect gift for anyone who veers into the land of quirky and oddball sensibilities. Or anyone who loves art and architecture. Or anyone who loves picture books. Or color. Or has tall bookshelves.

Pretty much anyone.

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This is a story of dueling home renovators. Neighbors. Just your average Joes with fancy names and fancier cars.

When Agenor-Agobar Poirer des Chappelles (!) adds a gold solid door, Willigis Kittycly Junior brings in a marble column inlaid with diamonds. The two pile on the one-ups – keeping up with the Monsieurs.

ElementOfDesign.WhiteSpace

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White space on the tall pages gives the homes physical space to grow. Also? I felt my own brain stretching to new fantastical and imaginative heights. Just when I thought I loved this book as much as possible, a chihuahua celebrates his third birthday with 400 guests.

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A wardrobe with 6,000 suits! A stuffed Bengal tiger! A Venetian mirror!

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Sky High is a lovely cautionary tale, peppered with wacky surprises and perfect illustrations. And on top of all that, (HA – get it?) it’s just as beautiful on the outside. I almost love that it’s too tall to fit on my bookshelf. More time to gaze at the warm gray and yellow of the cover. Just another tiny, portable art gallery in picture book form.

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Andrew Drew And Drew

15 November 2012

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Are you a sketcher? A doodler? A drawer?

(As in draw-er, not dresser!)

If so, you just may see yourself in this crafty, clever book.

This is a fairly new release from my fairly new friend, Barney Saltzberg.

Whether you have a tiny imagination that needs some calisthenics, or a huge-mongous, uncontrollable one, meet Andrew.

He draws. And draws.

And his lines become, well — anything at all!

Or even nothing.

And sometimes nothing is the best something.

Andrew.

He (and my new friend Barney!) have crafted a wonderfully animated book. You can’t just sit back and read it. You have to guess! And wonder! And unfold all of the pages!

And? Andrew (and Barney!) have left you enough white space to fill in the story with things from your own brain. What do you see? Where does your line take you?

It’s a delight. A brain tickler. An interactive treat.

A book.

Henri’s Walk To Paris

9 August 2012

22 Comments

So Saul Bass {1920-1996} illustrated this. You know him, even if you think you don’t.

Recognize any of these?

Saul Bass undoubtedly has a powerful legacy of corporate logo design, but he is also considered the father of the title sequence. I can’t say that I was well aware of him before I was a motion graphics designer, but as an animator, I am very influenced by his strong use of line and his bold color palettes.

{You can see a roundup of his title sequences at Art of the Title.}

And that’s fancy and whatnot, but then he created this sparkling kids’ book.

Henri is just a little French garçon who dreams of Paris, but lives in Reboul. He packs up some cheese, a carrot, and a piece of bread and walks himself there. But {SPOILER ALERT!} he doesn’t make it. A little bird disrupts his navigation, and he ends up right back in Reboul. But Henri? Thinks he made it, and thinks Paris is quite like home. And we love him for that.

In graphic design, unity is the quality that ties individual elements into a beautiful whole. Me talking about Saul Bass is like a dirty sock puppet oozing with glue and googly eyes having an opinion on Jim Henson. He’s a master craftsman, and so let me just show you some moments I love.

Check out these consecutive spreads. The typographic element that reflects the title IS Henri. And from one page to another, there he goes, walking off to Paris. This graphic drives your eye forward and invites you to dive into this book. And of course it tiptoes left to right. It’s how we read, and it simply signifies forward motion. Smart is an understatement.

He doesn’t clutter this illustration with a window sill, curtains, or many details of the room inside. It doesn’t matter. The story is outside. This is a brilliant use of negative space.

Henri’s tiny house, contrasted with the vast world beyond. And color…green and red are direct opposites on the color wheel, so the tiny pop of red is a perfect choice to offset the mass of green.

Soothing pattern repeats in those thousands of trees and the zoo full of animals.

A reminder of the cover, a peek into Henri’s walk. And below, a shift in perspective and point of view.

So Henri leaves home and returns again. Likewise, Saul Bass’ pictures ramp up to the climax of the story, and repeat again as Henri heads home. That same window repeats, that same wide shot of the tiny white house sits still again, only with different text for a different time in the story. It’s a detail that’s hard to show in pictures, but on an overall visual read of the story…it’s magnificent.

Henri’s Walk To Paris in reprint is a gift I didn’t even know I was was on my wish list. It’s joining this monster on my coffee table-slash-corner of my desk.

Extra Yarn

16 April 2012

37 Comments

Saturday. Burbank. Unwind Yarn. A genius author/artist combo in my neighborhood? One that I have proclaimed love for on multiple occasions? It was perfect.

{Cake pops wrapped in yarn. Adorable!}

And the dynamic duo: illustrator Jon Klassen, and author Mac Barnett.

{I have been to Mac’s website plenty of times, and only now realize the dapper man holding up the piano is HIM. Click over, am I right??}

I even met my Twitter buddy, Alyson Beecher!

…And heard Mac read Extra Yarn to the crowd. I mean, wow…his own words in his own voice…magical, really.

So…what the heck is up with this awesome book?

On a cold afternoon, in a cold little town,

where everywhere you looked was either the white of snow

or the black soot from chimneys,

Annabelle found a box filled with yarn of every color.

And she goes knit-crazy, wrapping her town with the color and warmth of this magic yarn. Remember the knit covered house in the picture above? Yeah. That happens.

I tried SO HARD to keep my cool while talking to Jon Klassen about design, really I did. He explained to me his reasonings for using white space and the puzzle of leaving room for the reader to create their own stories in the space left behind by both the words AND the pictures. We talked about texture and trailers and the differences in animating for the screen and designing for the book page. I managed to not faint and fall in it, thank-you-very-much. It was unreal.

But a notable design consideration in Extra Yarn is of course, color. Annabelle’s creations bring life to a drab, cold town.

Jon told us that he bought a $5 sweater from Goodwill, photographed it over a light table, and digitally colored over the photo-real stitches to get the look of the knits in Extra Yarn. Straight from the illustrator’s mouth: “Everything else I tried just looked stupid.”

Recognize that bear?

The archduke: the bad guy, out to get Annabelle’s yarn. Hearing Mac’s voice for the archduke? Also amazing.

What a day, what an event, what a book. See that?

Want it? Your own author AND illustrator signed copy of Extra Yarn?

Duh.

Leave a comment here by Sunday, April 22 at midnight PST to win it! I’ll announce a winner on Monday, April 23rd. Good luck!

Owl Moon

20 March 2012

2 Comments

{written by Jane Yolen, illustrated by John Schoenherr}

I think it’s well documented in these parts that rowdy read alouds steal my heart the most when it comes to picture books, but this one… Jane Yolen has rare rivals when it comes to a mastery of language and creating rich imagery with words.

It was late one winter night, long past my bedtime,

when Pa and I went owling.

There was no wind.

The trees stood still as giant statues.

I remember this book from the Ridge Elementary School library. It was wrapped in ripped Mylar and had smudged pages, and I can imagine it accompanied many bedtime rituals around the neighborhood. While I so vividly remember the cover, the Caldecott Medal, and that ripped Mylar, the story was entirely unfamiliar to me when I read it again recently.

How fun to revisit childhood moments with some grown-up eyes. (Grown-up eyes that are wrinkly and saggy, but whatever.)

I love color in this book because it is simultaneously lush and stark. It’s late, late at night, and the colors are made up of shadowy tones.

John Schoenherr represents Jane Yolen’s words exceptionally well in the white sky and white snow. The colors are in the duo, the shadows, and the landscape, and the regal owl, and bright white leaves room for the text.

This book is a beautiful combination of words and pictures, and certainly worth revisiting. I’m very thankful for my brand-spanking-new-no-ripping-Mylar copy, and very thankful for that one a long time ago. It was just one of many that made me enjoy the glory of a picture book.

What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

14 March 2012

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by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

This is one of those books that was constantly checked out of my little library in Virginia. How can you blame the kids? The cover is both creepy-crawly and funny, and the guts of this book are filled to the brim with pictures and facts about animals and their body parts. {And, any book that has something called a blue-footed booby inside is sure to be a winner. Trust me.} Not to mention that pretty silver Caldecott Honor Medal on the front…I wonder if Steve Jenkins willed himself a Caldecott by mimicking a circle in that scaly tail? A stretch? Maybe, but all those circles sure do look nice.

I know better, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to read this book without wanting to touch the pages and feel the roughness and texture of the collaged paper. The texture of the animals creates enormous contrast with the stark white of the rest of the page. These animals will absolutely jump off the page if you’re not careful. Their texture gives them such vibrance and life.

And just like in Actual Size, Steve Jenkins uses size (duh…) masterfully to create contrast. This makes for incredibly exciting page turns. On each question page, the animals’ body part is seen up close, and on the page where the answers are explained, we have zoomed out to see each entire animal. The playfulness in using size both furthers the story and provides great visual interest. Caldecott well deserved, I’d say.

But. One of his layout choices makes reading this book extra fun, and that element is Line.

The text is connected to its appropriate animal in a meaningful (and sometimes especially cute) way. It could have been easy to lay down the text in a center justified block next to each animal. The same information would get into the brain of the reader, sure. Instead though, the text exists in a space that is relevant to its particular animal. The horned lizard who squirts blood out of his eyes has, well, text squirting out of his eyes. And the skunk, who lifts his tail to spray his stink, sprays out text instead.

And that’s the beauty of this book! The pictures are gorgeous, the space left behind is intentional, and the information in the text is visually relevant to its accompanying image.

Symphony City

28 February 2012

26 Comments

by Amy Martin

I highly, HIGHLY recommend clicking over to Amy’s website. She has beautiful work everywhere you look, including some wordless spreads from Symphony City. Her style commands attention while still being sweet and subtle. {I particularly enjoy the Alphabet of Los Angeles. Taco Truck!} And I’m eyeballing one of her prints for my teeny corner of the house. Symphony City is her first book.

Music drives the story in Symphony City, which is so interesting given that it’s obviously in book form: art + pictures. And that is what is so magical about this book. The language is spare and staccato, leaving room for the pictures to whisk the reader away. Even the endpapers and title page sing with beats and rests.

nothing to do

we can make it if we hurry

{This is my favorite spread in the whole entire book. I love that you can’t see her face, but you feel her determination and zest. And the echo of the flock of birds in her vibrant raincoat? Along what surely everyone else sees as a boring and bland brick wall in the subway? Love.}

ELEMENT OF DESIGN:

The color palette is gorgeous, the use of white and negative space is perfection, but one of the things I love most in this book is its texture. Texture gives an added spark of life to the pages. If the texture was removed, the art would still be beautiful. Absolutely. But in this book, the slight paper texture and grain adds an additional layer of richness, similar to the layered sounds of an orchestra…

…similar to the rising crescendo of the Symphony City.

The faint roughness in the browns and greens of this spread adds warmth and interest.

Similarly here, the poofs of the ladies’ tutus are full and tactile. But can’t you also hear them? The rustling of those poofs? The slightest hint of texture helps evoke that experience in the reader.

Texture adds a vibration to this art. A deft-handed touch of texture breathes extra life into these pictures, to the point where you can almost hear the pulse of the city. Subtle integration, huge dynamic impact to the read.

{even in texure; even in graphic design.}

I Want My Hat Back

1 February 2012

10 Comments

Image

This book. These tweets. That bear.

Irresistible. I Want My Hat Back swooped in fiercely this fall and won my heart big time.

My hat is gone. I want it back.

The cover and those first lines above say it all. That poor wide eyed bear just wants his hat. Have YOU seen it? One by one, the bear asks his forest buddies and while I will give no spoilers, the bear gets (and gives!) what is deserved. So well done.

Jon Klassen’s art and words complement each other so well. I’m not the only one who thinks so; he did win a Geisel award this year. And I have so much to say about both! Buckle in.

The story is carried entirely in dialog, yet he doesn’t use any quotation marks or dialog tags. By simply changing the color of the text, the reader knows that someone different is speaking. Although the bear repetitively asks, “Have you seen my hat?” and the reader quickly realizes that pattern,  changing the text color is still an effective and yet subtle design choice.

My favorite? The turtle. That slow little squirt just wants to sunbathe on top of the rock. And he says please.

Even the endpapers succinctly tell of the bear’s plight. Take my word for it, but the initial endpapers show a hatless bear, and by the end:

Ultimately, (bold statement) all of Jon Klassen’s successes can be wrapped up in his excellent use of space.

Despite its name, white space doesn’t have to be white.

Huh?

It refers to the empty space in a layout between various elements. White space can exist between images in an illustrated spread, words and pictures, lines of type or even between graphic elements and the gutter. And usually it makes non-designers antsy. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…white space is intentional and NOT empty.

Think about Where’s Waldo. Sure its entertaining and a good time killer, but so many images are stuffed on a page that you have no idea where to start. Your poor, tired eyeballs dart to and fro and never rest because the picture is so visually overwhelming. White space counters this. It allows for your eye to rest in an image and to know where to look. You can digest information with more comfort and ease. And really? It just looks better. Trust me.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to be white:

Jon Klassen could have smushed all the animals into this spread. Or trees, clouds, aliens, or umbrellas…anything. Instead, he brilliantly matches sparse text with a bold graphic. Why mess up the words with a cluttered picture? Why mess up the picture with too many words?

{Answer: don’t.}

Though stark, his characters are full of emotion and life. Though few, his words spare nothing. Jon Klassen is a stunning designer; both his words and his pictures prove it.

Actual Size

14 January 2012

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Steve Jenkins’ concept for Actual Size is simple. Showcase creatures at their actual size. Truly. Right there on the cover is a teeny pygmy mouse that fits just snug up against a gorilla thumb.Smaller animals fit nicely in the frame, but some are way too massive to fit in the confines of the book’s pages. And that is the spark and fun investigation of Actual Size.

Did you ever look a giant squid in the eye?

How many dwarf gobies do you think fit in that squid’s eyeball?

Even before I studied graphic design, I was drawn to the cut paper collages of these illustrations. Don’t you just want to hug on that ostrich’s neck? So tactile and inviting.

I just looked at size in my most recent post, LMNO Peas, and it’s another clear choice here. And, well…uh…the title is Actual SIZE. But in this book, the goal is for the reader to interact with the pages, to compare and contrast sizes among different animals. And just how big is your hand compared to that gorilla’s? The illustrations in LMNO Peas use size to guide layout and movement within one page, and Actual Size tackles size to guide contrast.

Ever wonder why there are only SEVEN elements of design and a million billion trillion pictures and images in the world? (No? Just me on a lazy Saturday night?) Well that’s why. Seven foundational elements that can combine and solve problems differently in those million billion trillion ways.

His teeth are so massive that it takes a three page foldout to show them all! Chomp.

The adorable little pygmy mouse lemur is the size of my keys. {Can you spot my Burbank Public Library key tag under there? I think I owe them $3.00.}

I love a good elephant. Always.

And just in case you needed any more convincing about how incredible this book is, how about a pictorial glossary of all the animals scaled to fit? Thank you, Steve Jenkins, for making a picture book that is just as informative as it is beautiful…even if it doesn’t fit on my bookshelf very well.

Pomelo Begins To Grow

19 December 2011

5 Comments

December is pulling a disappearing act. Please slow down, December. I haven’t had enough eggnog yet.

Still looking for a few books to slide under the tree? This one, illustrated by Benjamin Chaud and written by Ramona Badescu, is so pretty that you won’t even need wrapping paper.

As Pomelo went on his way one morning, he passed an ant, some potatoes, a pebble, a bunch of strawberries and his favorite dandelion.

Curiously enough, his dandelion seemed surprisingly small.

If the name Pomelo isn’t enough to instantly entice you to read, how about his elephant-ness? Yes? With a long, skinny, tape-measure trunk? He’s adorable. And growing.

Pomelo is quite worried about whether he will grow evenly all over. Or if he will turn big and gray and wrinkly.

And whether or not he will still just be a plain old kid.

The illustrations float a delicate line between restrained and fantastical, but each spread is equally inviting. Perhaps they even forgive an egregious grammar error? {Because Pomelo Begins To Grow was originally written in French, some of the wording may have been lost in translation. Hopefully this gets fixed on the next edition? It’s so lovely, that it would be a shame to not perfect it.}

ELEMENT OF DESIGN: SIZE

Size refers to the bigness and smallness of various objects. {Duh.} But in design, elements of equal size create confusion on a page, because your eye jumps around awkwardly and is not not sure where to land. Pairing items of different sizes within a composition yields a more dynamic piece. The pages of Pomelo Begins To Grow play with size differences in a quirky manner, a design choice that makes sense due to the growth and the quest of our hero.

But.

The greatest moment for size doesn’t even happen in the story. Behold: the endpapers.

{Insert sweet Pomelo’s story here.}

Very clever and very much why I love how design frames picture books. These endpapers summarize an already snappy story visually and quickly. A one-two punch of pretty.

Boom.