Designers/Authors. Authors/Designers.

Emily Coxhead

Calls herself a “designer, illustrator and happy thing maker”.

During the creation process for my game concept (week 8), I began to form another idea – there is currently so much negativity within the media and it’s everywhere, making it nearly impossible for us to ignore. So I thought, I wonder if we can do something to combat this… like some kind of ‘good news report’? It only took me one search to find that someone has already had the same thoughts – I found Emily Coxhead’s Happy News.

Every single day there are people helping others and doing incredible things in all corners of the planet and the majority of them aren’t celebrated, but we think they deserve to be recognised. We aim to bring a refreshing twist on what we typically know as ‘news’, reporting on positive changes and truly inspiring people.

In 2015, Emily Coxhead published The Happy News, a newspaper celebrating only the good stuff going on around the world. After look further into her work I can see she has a very specific ‘light hearted’ doodle style of illustration that fit in with the concept of the newspaper perfectly. I’m a huge fan of this and the only negative side of it is that I haven’t found it sooner. Emily also keeps her social media’s active by feeding through constant happy illustrated messages as well as life updates – this ‘making others happy’ theme then continued as she went on to publish her book, Make Someone Happy.

This is an interactive journal where users can turn to if they need something to cheer either themselves or a friend up, but more importantly it seems to shift the readers focus onto finding the positives in life, highlighting what makes them happy.

 

Christoph Niemann

Calls himself an “artist, author and animator”.

Christoph Neimann specialises in editorial work and has authored several books, his illustration style is always of a playful nature and he has such a wonderful way of looking at things in a different way. For example, he started posting ‘Sunday Sketches’ on his social media – this would using revolve around the idea of combining an everyday object with an illustration to create a character or an image. Finding new ways to let his imagination take over and transform objects that we see and use each day into something completely different.

His book, Sunday Sketching, is part autobiography and part heartfelt essay on what it means to work creatively and stemmed from the body of work he had created during his initial Sunday Sketches project.

There was a body of work with the Sunday Sketches and a number of unassigned materials that I thought was enough for a book. I could edit out a lot, and still have enoug. Whenever I do a book I always think that you need to have 300% material, so the best 30% will make for a tight publication.

He’s also written a few children books, each of these of course include his own characteristic illustrations, ‘That’s How’ in particular is one of my favourites. I think it’s the perfect example of how a child’s (or anyone’s!) imagination can play to make a situation real and playful.

It’s Nice That did an interview with him discussing his ‘Sunday Sketches’ book – Interview

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Potential Authorial Projects

 

This week we have been challenged to produce 10 potential project ideas we would like to pursue if we were one day to become an author. When I was younger, I actually did quite a lot of writing, never really completed any, but I love writing the beginnings of all these wild, magical stories.

If I was to ever become an author now, I think I’d like to stay with that child like idea of producing something that will bring the user excitement & happiness and force them to engage with their inner child.

 

Series of hidden ‘magics’ within towns or villages

These would be a series of books that highlight all of the weird and wonderful locations, shops and objects that can be found within a town. Although this would be somewhat educational as it will provide information and history of each found ‘magic’, but it will also have a child like excitement about it, for unique objects that can’t be explained I would create small narratives for them or make up ‘silly facts’ just to make people smile. Hopefully this would spark readers to go out on an adventure to find them themselves.

 

Doodle Collection

Just as it sounds, it would be a book filled with doodles I’ve done during my travels. I personally find public transport very difficult, so I use doodling as a distraction to help me get around without panicking. Each doodle page would be dated and titled by a short description of where I was going and what transportation method I had used. I believe this could be an interesting way to raise awareness on mental health as well as highlight as healthy and helpful coping mechanism for those that struggle with public situations.

 

Daily Challenge

A book dedicated to provided the reader with a daily challenge to complete through the year. These challenges will focus on helping the reader break out of mundane routines and make each day different. The aim is to help people find happiness for themselves and others, it could also challenge them to try or learn something new.

 

Instagramable Locations

A picture book that shows all of the most popular spots where people go to take photos for their Instagram feed. Although this may seem like it’s promoting these kind of behaviours, it’s actual aim is just to show the reality of the space and highlight how ridiculous it is put these types of photographs on a pedestal.

 

Extinct Animals

A book that has the potential, sadly, to become a series. It will contain information on all the animals that have become extinct due to human interjection. As well as photos, it will also provide information on the animal, it’s habitat, how it came to be extinct and when. This book will hopefully help to spread awareness on the effects our actions are having on the earth and the living things that live within it.

 

A Child’s World

A picture book that contains photographs of ‘normal’ objects, environments and spaces with illustrations over the top of them to show what a child may see in them. I did a project like this back in module 1 and it’s something I would like to continue.

 

Locations Colours

This book would only have titles of the places for each segment, but other than that the rest will simply just be pantone colours. These colours will be selected from a series of photographs taken within a city or town and displayed to be a ‘palette’ of that location.

 

Alternative Furniture

What is a chair didn’t look like a chair? what if it was just a cushioned hole in the ground you sat within? This book will focus on creating a series of sketches and potentially prototypes for alternative furniture that shy away from the usual form.

 

Lost Things

A series of children’s books that give narratives to lost things found within the streets. Their stories will take you on an adventure of where they possibly came from in hopes that you can trace them back to their longing owners.

 

Comics

I would quite like to give creating comics that are based on the every day struggles of living with a mental health condition. These won’t be serious as they will aim to make mental health an approachable or relatable topic of conversation.

 

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Reflection

Based on the contemplation of ideas above, I think it’s safe to say that strict editorial design isn’t going to be an area that I will feel comfortable within. However I do really like the idea of publishing something that still leaves space for play and different perspectives. Initially when I thought of something getting ‘published’ I thought of a book, nothing more, but this week has allowed me to see that there are many different routes that you could take when it comes to becoming an author of some description.

Again, it’s pretty obvious that most of my design ideas are revolved around bringing some sort of joy or a feeling of child-like curiosity to people – throughout this MA it’s becoming more and more apparent that this is a route that I’m very keen to go down, or rather more naturally just lean towards. This is quite helpful in the sense that it allows  me to take a great deal of lessons learnt from previous projects into the next one, however I do wonder if it would be worth whilst me trying to make a conscious effort to try something different.