"Designing books is my life – I love it." • Ness Wood

Behind the scenes with acclaimed book designer, Ness Wood. In this guest blog post, Ness looks at the processes involved in designing Sam Boughton's debut picture book, The Extraordinary Gardener, which has recently been shortlisted for the 2019 Klaus Flugge Prize.

The Extraordinary Gardener by Sam Boughton (Tate Publishing, 2018)

Hi! I am Ness Wood, a freelance book designer working for various publishers. Holly Tonks (then at Tate Publishing) contacted me to see if I wanted to work on Sam Boughton’s book. I knew Sam’s work as I collaborate with Cambridge School of Art, providing lectures and presenting the students work at the Bologna Book Fair. I love Sam’s illustration and I am aware of how hard she worked for her final show and, after it, continually developing her style to what it looks like today.

Holly sent me the text and I did initial layouts as a starting point. Prior to this, Sam and Holly had been working on the story and flow of the book.

I usually do a few examples of typefaces that I think could be used, to see how different styles of font ‘feel’ with the text and images – it’s is about complimenting the images and story; the typeface could be contrasting or it could be sympathetic to the style of illustration.

The editor and designer and author/illustrator come to an agreement about which to use and then Sam does roughs for the book. Sam had already roughed the book out, but after doing some tweaks to some of the spreads and pacing, she sends me the roughs digitally. I position them in InDesign, considering the text and the image placement in order to get balance across the spread. Some of the spreads may be double-page spreads and some may be singles or have vignettes – at this point the layout is still ‘up in the air.’

Sam Boughton's roughs, a double-page spread from The Extraordinary Gardener

There is lots of to-ing and fro-ing as a designer – sending layouts by pdf to the editor and then doing the amends and then consulting with Sam to see if she thinks certain layouts/amends to her original layouts will work. It is a collaborative process.

Another rough and early layout from inside Sam Boughton's The Extraordinary Gardener

After the roughs and layouts are okayed Sam starts the artwork. After Sam has done one piece of artwork, the Tate get a test proof done – this is a proof which will show Sam how all her colours will be reproduced when printed. As Sam works digitally this will show her what she needs to do to amend any of the colours in photoshop to achieve the colour she desires.

It is at this stage that I start doing cover designs – I have the roughs so I can use those in order to start some initial ideas. Covers are often needed early for catalogues/sale material.

I send cover ideas to Holly and she will discuss them with her team. Usually the editor will come back to me with feedback and then I will amend the ideas and they present them again. I will share them with Sam to see what she thinks and then we will discuss further.

Above and below are early versions of the cover design.

The design is tweaked until finally we have final cover, front and back (shown below)

Sam will have been doing the artwork for the insides. Her artwork is all done by hand using ink pastel and paint, which she then scans in and puts the elements together in photoshop. So when she has finished the illustrations, she will send it to me digitally, rather than as physical pieces of actual artwork, and I will position the files and then send a pdf with my comments to the editor. We will collate our comments and then send them to Sam. There may be some pieces of artwork Sam needs to amend, though hopefully not, as any issues should have been sorted out at the rough stage. No illustrator really wants to start amending artwork after they have finished the book, but it does happen. The cover is also finalised too at this stage and the type, colours and the back cover copy is also checked. The whole book is then once more checked over, for any typos or sentences that do not quite work or any images that have been cropped wrongly or need repositioning.

The book is then sent to be proofed and then usually the editor and illustrator and designer go through the proofs together. It is very exciting to see the proofs: Sam’s illustrations actually on paper.

No one book is the same, so other projects may have other stages, and more complex issues. Sam’s book is an amazing début and I am very proud to have worked on it.

Many thanks to Ness Wood for her great insight into the design process behind children's picture books. For more information on Ness, book design and illustration, including courses (via Orange Beak Studio), please visit: nesswood.co.uk

The Extraordinary Gardener by Sam Boughton is one of six books by outstanding debut picture-book illustators, shortlisted for the 2019 Klaus Flugge Prize.The winning book will be announced 11 Sept 2019.

From redundancy to award-winning picture book • Guest blog post by Kate Milner

Huge congratulations to author illustrator, Kate Milner, who last week won the prestigious 2018 Klaus Flugge Prize for the most exciting and promising newcomer to children's book illustration.
In her guest blog post, Kate takes us behind the scenes of her award-winning  My Name is Not Refugee. We see illustrations that didn't make it into the final picture book, and discover why they were left out.

When my job was replaced by a machine at our local library I decide to take the chance to do an MA in children’s illustration at Anglia Ruskin. I had wanted to do the course for many years but it felt like a huge risk to step out of the labour market when I had commitments. There was so much excitement and so much fear wrapped up in returning to education in middle age.

I had done some work in editorial illustration when I was younger and I have always drawn and written stories for adults but it was working in the local library which showed me all the possibilities in children’s publishing. I also, of course, met a lot of readers. It was an excellent education.

I came up with the idea for My Name Is Not Refugee at the very end of the course when I should have been finishing off a piece of work for presentation. It was born out of anger at the debate in the press about the march of refugees out of Syria. They were being described as a zombie army, shuffling towards us, and it felt important to me to explain to children why these families had no choice but to leave their homes. It was crazy to start work on this idea a few days before the end of the course but that is what I did, presenting at the final crit a scrappy, half-finished picture book, with no cover. We all agreed it had no chance of commercial success. 

All the steps which have taken me from that crit to winning the Klaus Flugge Prize feel as if they are nothing to do with me but all the wonderful tutors, fellow students, agents and publishers who have picked it up and run with it. When people congratulate me I always say that I have been very lucky. Being polite they generally then say something like, not luck but talent; but, without any false modesty, I know that it takes collaboration to get a book into the hands of children and I have been very very lucky in my collaborators.

Unlike others below, this is an early illustration
that did make it into the final book.
From My Name in Not Refugee by Kate Milner
Published by The Bucket List (Barrington Stoke), 2017

Some of the spreads in the final book have hardly changed since I first drew them. The illustration showing people sleeping on the station platform is an example (see above), it is almost exactly the image I made as soon as I had the idea. Some spreads, on the other hand, have gone through a lot of changes and below are three early illustrations which have not made it into the book.

1) We'll hear words we don't understand.
This was the first example of the idea. I was trying to get the feeling of not understanding anything around you as a child might who finds themselves in a strange country. It’s not just the people who are speaking a strange language, it’s the radio, the dog, the street signs and the magazines, everything is different. Although I still like this image I can see it didn’t fit in with the rest of the book.

Early illustration idea on language, Kate Milner

We'll hear words we don't understand, from the final book
My Name is Not Refugee, Kate Milner

2) We'll see lots of new and interesting things.
Here is  another spread that went through many many changes. The little boy at the centre of the book is basically a cheerful, curious character so, to give a change of mood, I wanted to show him excited about something new. But what should the new thing be?

Early illustration idea on seeing new and interesting things, Kate Milner

This was one idea which came from looking at pictures of refugee camps on the internet. I could see temporary shops being set up with items for sale wrapped in plastic bags and hung from washing lines. I found this visually very interesting, the sweeping curves of the washing lines, the distortion of the objects through the plastic; I got a bit carried away. Again I like this image but I can see why it hasn’t made it into the final book. It’s my idea of what is interesting, not a small boy’s.

We'll see lots of new and interesting things, from the final book
My Name is Not Refugee, Kate Milner

3) Sometimes we'll wait by ourselves...
I like this image, probably more than the illustration in the final book which is a return to my original idea. However, I can absolutely see why we decided not to use it.

Early illustration idea on waiting, Kate Milner

The heart of the book is the relationship between the mother and her little boy. On nearly every spread of the final book they are touching, or close to each other, or looking at each other. If she is there he is safe and can look out at the world around him. This illustration does not show that connection between them.

Sometimes we'll wait by ourselves, from the final book
My Name is Not Refugee, Kate Milner

Kate Milner

Thank you, Kate, for this wonderful insight into your new picture book, and for showing us that redundancy can be an exciting catalyst to something new.
Follow Kate on Twitter @ABagForKatie

My Name is Not Refugee by Kate Milner is published by The Bucket List (Barrington Stoke), 2017
Klaus Flugge Prize 2018  www.klausfluggeprize.co.uk

How would you end this story? • Francesca Sanna (guest blogger)

The Picture Book Den welcomes guest blogger, Francesca Sanna. Her first picture book, The Journey, received wide acclaim and is endorsed by Amnesty International UK for reminding us that we all have the right to a safe place to live. Francesca's many awards include the 2017 Klaus Flugge Prize, which is presented to the year's most promising and exciting newcomer to children’s picture book illustration. 

In this blog post, Francesca talks about the debate surrounding the ending to The Journey.

My first book, The Journey, is the story of a family and of the journey they undertake when they realise their home is not a safe place anymore. As I briefly tried to explain in a note at the end of the book, it was inspired by many stories of many people I spoke with, from many different countries and backgrounds. A part of the research was even focused on historical documents about immigration in the early 1900. I didn’t want The Journey to be a specific story; I wanted it to convey the idea that everyone has to right to have a safe place to live. For this reason, in the book I try to give as little information as possible about where, or when, the story is set. 

The Journey by Francesca Sanna, Flying Eye Books 2016

A few months ago, during a reading with Year Two children in a school in London, a boy asked me, “How do you end a book that is inspired by a real story if that story is still going on?”

Questions are always a challenge, and I love the process of thinking about them and trying to come up with good answers – though I often fail – but I found this one particularly interesting. 
It made me think about another question I get asked quite often, mostly from adults: “Why does The Journey not have a proper ending?” The story I wrote does in fact have an ending, but it is a quite open one. The journey of the family we follow through the pages is not concluded in the usual way. Instead, the book ends leaving the family on their way to a new home, without showing any arrival, and this element has caused much discussion. Someone during a conference even told me I had cheated as I had gone against one of the main rules in children’s literature: a children’s book needs a happy ending. 

Journeying on the ferry, from The Journey by Francesca Sanna

A couple of years before I finished the book, I decided to do some research around the topic of immigration and in particular of refugees, because of what was happening (and sadly still is happening) in Italy, my home country, and in the rest of Europe.
 I was quite frustrated by having the same discussion over and over with people I knew, and by reading the comment sections of many posts on social media. In Italy the public opinion was – and still is – increasingly becoming more intolerant and turning against newcomers. When I first moved to study and work in other European countries (Germany first and then Switzerland) I saw that the same discussion and attitude was spreading there too. 

Border guard, from The Journey by Francesca Sann

I finished the illustrations for The Journey in May 2015, right before one of the worst moments of the refugee crisis in Europe. After that I was encouraged many times to change the ending of the story and to make the family finally arrive at their new home. I considered the idea and even tried some rough sketches of an ‘arrival’.

Finally, with the help of my publisher Flying Eye, I decided not to. Leaving the story open and the journey unfinished was, in my opinion, the best way to start a discussion on this topic with the children through a proper tool, a book, that gave to this discussion all the time and space needed. In this way I could give an ending to a story that still does not have one, leaving it open. 

Keep moving, from The Journey by Francesca Sanna

After the book was published, The Journey had its own journey. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet an incredible community of librarians, teachers, activists, and most importantly readers. I went around schools in different countries (Spain, Austria, UK, Italy, Germany and Switzerland) and saw the reaction to the book I wrote, discussing it with children and teachers.

Stories of escape, from The Journey by Francesca Sanna

The reactions to my open-and-maybe-not-so-happy ending were varied, as were the general responses to the book in every class and every school.
 Sometimes, when I read the story, I would finish reading the last lines and then I would have to say “and this was the last page of the book”. Normally this moment is followed by surprised gazes and a few whispered “What???”. Some of the children like the idea of different possible ways of ending the story on their own, while some hate the concept of a journey that does not reach the destination.

Migrating birds. Final image from The Journey by Francesca Sanna

Back at the beginning, my idea of a blank ending was more a symbolic idea, to leave to parents or teachers the space for a discussion with their children about what happens next. Later I took it more literally with workshops where children completed the story however they wanted. I'd read the story,  discussing some pages and the choices I made when writing and illustrating the story. Then I'd answer all their question until finally I'd ask them one question: how would you end the story?

“They buy a house and have a beautiful life!” An ending by Saphir, 7 years old

Drawing from a reading at the City Library of Geneva (Switzerland)
with children from Year 1 to Year 4

Further information
Amnesty International useful classroom resources on The Journey pdf 
The Klaus Flugge Prize
Francesca Sanna website

Beyond the Doughnuts by Nicholas John Frith (Guest Blogger)

Published in the UK
by Alison Green Books, 2016

Welcome to our guest at the Picture Book Den: author and illustrator Nicholas John Frith. His first book, Hector and the Hummingbird, had us grinning and won the Klaus Flugge Prize for most exciting newcomer to picture book illustration in 2016. Now Nicholas muses (or in his words, ‘brain spews’!) on his second book, Hello Mr Dodo!

I’m not entirely sure where the idea, for my latest picture book, Hello, Mr Dodo!, came from. But it was all in there somewhere, when I was reading a newspaper article about the discovery of a flightless bird, in New Zealand, that had previously been considered ’extinct’; watching 'The Hunter', the Willem Defoe movie, about the rumour of the last Tasmanian Tiger and the planned exploitation of it; growing my interest in birds and the natural world; and reflecting on my own childhood summers.

Hello, Mr Dodo! is pretty new to the shelves, but I am pleased when I hear people are noting the underlying themes of the story, beyond the bright doughnuts and advertised ‘friendship’ tale. Many of those themes were influenced by my thoughts on the material listed above and are what really drove the project forward within me.

“Martha was cuckoo about birds.”

That’s how the story begins. And from the very first draft, that’s how it always began. I love a bit of word play. At one point there were a good handful of bird-related puns in the text. Although they didn’t all make it past my editor (Alison Green), it was a still bit of a lark!

The story didn’t change much during the process of making the book. It always began and ended pretty much the same way as it does. With only the timings of when Martha realises the bird is actually a dodo, and the where-and-when of the secret being let slip, shifting in the narrative.

As I dug deeper into the history of the dodo, I realised just how little was known about them. How much of it was vague, and how almost mythical they were. And therefore, how interesting liberties could be taken with the dodo, without stretching the truth too far.

They didn’t have to be living in Mauritius – as they had been put on boats by the Dutch. They could love eating doughnuts – as no one can disprove that they’d love these sweet fried treats! 

One thing about the dodo ‘character’ that was paramount to me though, even within his friendship with Martha, was that ‘Mr Dodo’ remained a bird, an animal. Despite Martha’s engagement.

With the artwork, I wanted to embrace the opportunity to use bright spot (pantone) colours again, as I had with my debut, Hector and Hummingbird. And the summer setting was perfect for this. The dodo was a joy to draw too and I’m particularly pleased with his partially vacant demeanour.

When I start imagining the artwork for a book, I start imagining the entire book. The endpapers, the size, the paper type, the layout, the title page, the typography, and the extras. Extras that add another dimension to the book (and the story), like the KNOW YOUR BIRDS page at the back of Hello, Mr Dodo! or the SPOT THE JUNGLE ANIMALS in Hector and Hummingbird.

And I try to think of the feeling I’d have if I were holding the final book in my hands. 

Endpapers: Hello, Mr Dodo!

I strive to put across this importance, of the book as a whole. About how it makes us feel, as well as the story in the words.

If it were up to me I’d love it if the ‘lead’ edition of my books were always hardbacks.

Talking of hardbacks… Hello, Mr Dodo! will be published (in hardback) in the USA later this month, by Arthur A. Levine Books. Which I’m excited about.

Anyhow.

Thanks to Picture Book Den for the opportunity to brain spew (my words, not theirs) on their blog. It’s really just been snippets of reflection on my latest book. Cheers
Nicholas

One last thing… A good friend of mine recently mentioned that, since reading Dodo, his young son now starts on, incessantly, about wanting doughnuts each time he sees an image of a dodo! So, I’m sorry, if this happens to you too. But the fact is, dodos love doughnuts! Ask Martha, she’ll tell you the same.