Two new children's books created, written and illustrated by Here Design have been released by Ladybird Books. In a Minute and A Bare Bear are the first releases in a more design-aware range of children's books from Penguin as part of the 'Ladybird by Design' series.
Designed to appeal to both children and parents, Here approached the open brief by considering what would be fun and engaging from a child's perspective rather than what an adult would expect a children's book to look like.
"In our studio we have a real enthusiasm for words so the opportunity to create books for children that showed the nonsense of language and made it fun to learn about words was a joy," commented Caz Hildebrand, Creative Partner at Here Design. "Creating children's books can be a real challenge, however. When you only have four words on a page, choosing the right four words is crucial."
A Bare Bear
A Bare Bear is a book of words that sound the same takes the reader on a whimsical journey through examples of homonyms and homophones with exuberant illustrations that make it easy to understand the difference between the two while expanding and developing vocabulary. With short sentences and keywords in bold, the reader is invited to say the words aloud to hear their similarity.
In a Minute
In a Minute. Take the 60-second challenge! gives the reader an interesting time-related factoid and then challenges them to perform an activity in one minute. For example, A winning star-jumper can jump 77 times in a minute. How many star-jumps can you do in a minute? The book combines playful information with stimulating physical and mental exercises illustrated by Here Design with a collection of playful images.
Both titles have been created as more than narrative stories, with the intention behind the books to encourage children to actively engage with the material. "These books are a way of making sense of the idiosyncrasies of our language", explained Hildebrand. "It's wonderful to see young readers engaging with something we design - seeing them read the books and laugh. There's also an opportunity for adults to discreetly learn a thing or two about figures of speech while teaching children!".
Photos: Courtesy of Here Design