Tag Archives: collage

balloonsoverbroadway

Balloons Over Broadway

11 July 2012

27 Comments

Housekeeping Alert!

I updated the look and layout of this little blog. New header! New Widget-y thingys!

If you are seeing this in a Reader or via email, click over and check it out! I also made updates to the About and Book Trailers pages, and added a link to Other Work. AND, the carousel of images at the top of the Home page holds 5 images, and will rotate through older posts. I love this, because it’s so hard to say goodbye to one favorite book when it’s time for another! Ahem….like this one:

by Melissa Sweet

I adore Melissa Sweet’s work. And now that I just lost myself in her website for a good while, I adore her even more! I imagine she’s just like her site: vibrant, colorful, and exciting.

And this book is PHENOMENAL. Really. I have always been a huge fan of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and even wrote it into one of my defunct picture book manuscripts. That parade as a setting was a million times better than anything else that was in that book. Truly.

So three whooping cheers for a REAL book about this parade…a fantastic, beautiful, stunning book!

Melissa Sweet brings alive the work of Tony Sarg, the marionette engineer and puppeteer whose legacy bobs high above the street in massive helium creatures. Never heard of him? Me neither. But now I’m so thankful to know his story. It’s wildly creative and inspiring.

This. A flat, shiny title page. But doesn’t it look like you could plunge your arms directly into that shoebox diorama? Even though I know better, I still found myself running my fingers over the page, expecting to feel knots and bumps and holes.

In design, texture is used to create the appearance of a tactile surface. In the real world, you can touch and feel surfaces, and in graphic design, your eye reads the texture. Melissa Sweet’s mixed-media collages illustrate this principle beautifully.

Right?  I hope I’m not the only one whose paws have tried to flick off that button or lift the kooky puppet.

I love this gorgeous combination of painted illustration, torn paper, and a true to scale map of Manhattan.

Same here! The graphic panels combined with hand drawn typography and more paper scraps. A lot of story information is handled in the pictures and the way these textured graphics serve as both extra illustrations and extra words.

And in case you needed any more proof that Balloons Over Broadway is visually stunning, the inside back cover reveals the original New York Times ad for the 1933 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Trust me when I tell you there is SO MUCH MORE within the pages of this book. I didn’t want to spoil all the surprises, but you are in for a real treat with this book.

RUN TO THE LIBRARY OR YOUR NEAREST BOOKSTORE! Seriously! I don’t like to yell unless it’s extremely important.

{Balloons Over Broadway received both the 2012 Robert F. Sibert Medal and the 2012 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award, which both recognize outstanding non-fiction for children.}

Want more? Read this interview with Melissa Sweet about her research for Balloons Over Broadway. And don’t forget her website...it’s filled to the brim with treats!


There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

14 February 2012

6 Comments

It’s no secret how this story ends. You’ve heard it a million times. But have you ever seen look this remarkable?

Jeremy Holmes is the graphic designer behind this book, and it’s so much fun to hold.

It’s tall and thin, so even before you get to the story, you are already experiencing this book in such a fresh way. This book showcases many elements of design beautifully, but I would consider size one of the highlights because it is so immediately striking.

The middle third of the book contains the pages of the story, so the entire story is framed by the little old lady’s spindly stocking feet and all knowing eyes. And again, you know how her story ends, right? At the close of the last page, her eyes shut as well. Kinda ingenious.

Jeremy Holmes’ collages are both warm and kooky thanks to his textures and color palette. His imagination tells a familiar story in a fresh way. And it’s just plain fun to hold this book, turn the pages, and even laugh at her untimely end.

Love the shout out on the back cover to book design as well as illustration!

{This trailer is a tad slow and perhaps even creepy, but it’s a really lovely look at some of Holmes’ illustrations in There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.}

Actual Size

14 January 2012

3 Comments

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.

The Little Yellow Leaf

4 January 2012

5 Comments

The Little Yellow Leaf by the amazing Carin Berger has been a favorite for a while. A few springs ago, I decided I was going to read through the EASY section of the Burbank Public Library. I think I got to C before I dumped that resolution. Good thing Carin Berger is a B.

It was autumn.

One solitary leaf clings to the edge of his dear and comfortable branch, afraid to let go and drift into the fall air. He’s just not ready. And so he stays, through the fall harvest and the bleak winter. Eventually, with the gentle nudge of a trusted friend, our steadfast little yellow leaf soars.

ELEMENT OF DESIGN: TEXTURE

Texture is an absolute standout in this book. Carin Berger creates intricate art out of cut paper, cobbling and collaging rich, tactile, and inviting illustrations.

{Check out this interview with the artist. Fascinating!}

Ordinary items {ticket stubs, an ancient water bill, and graph paper} transform into something entirely different, and entirely stunning. This method of creating art is not unlike the journey on which this little yellow leaf embarks, right? Just a leaf. Just figuring out the world.

A goal of texture in graphic design is to create a mood and to enhance the depth and richness of a piece.

This book would look entirely different without such precise attention to creating texture, to setting a scene, and to evoking emotion.

So lovely, so quiet. {Who am I?!} Worth a million reads.