Extended briefs

I have now finished all the competition briefs for my extended module. I chose briefs that would help me develop my practice and possibly help me gain some exposure and contact publishers as well. The main focus of my extended module has been illustrating children’s books, I have completed:

- the Carmelite prize- illustrating a children’s book based on a story that they supplied
- the Templar prize- to illustrate an original children’s book that I wrote myself, I only found out about this competition with 10 days left until the deadline. This provided a good exercise in working towards a strict deadline. I enjoyed the process but found I wasn’t able to test out idea as well as I would have liked.
- the Penguin book cover brief- I entered this competition this last year and didn’t really enjoy it but decided to try again this year. Although book cover design is not the focus of my practice it was a good excercise in combining image and text effectively and working to a strict layout. There is less freedom that designing book pages and a large amount of text that needs to be included, the cover also has a very specific purpose that needs to be considered throughout the design process. I think it is beneficial for my practice going forward to be familiar with book cover design and also the be able to apply my practice a range of formats.
- I have completed two submissions for the Macmillan prize, one of the books was taken from my COP module earlier in the year and the other is an updated version of a book idea I had last year. I have submitted both to the competition and ideally I’d hope they do well and I receive some feedback about my work but I also plan to keep working on one of them so that I can have a finished book ready to showcase at the Hanbury exhibition. The polar bear book I have entered for this competition is a project I have really enjoyed and something I would like to continue with and send to publishers that accept manuscripts. It would be helpful for me to get as much feedback about both my illustrations and writing as possible at this stage.