A small tale of our work process, and about how the book became alive. If you don't know yet. This project had the purpose to produce three children's books in a collaboration between Danish and Dutch schools.
First Off:
We had a chat after our initial brainstorm, and found our idea for the concept.
Then...
it was time to start sketching some ideas and creating a storyboard
Next
We took some inspiration from the neighbourhood, which Escher grew up in as a child, an based our sketches on shops that are represented in the actual street today
Now,
it was time to color, and put in the last details and characters.
and finally!..
the book is finished.
1st week
Group formation and Brainstorm
The first week of our project week was in Leeuwarden, Holland.
Here we met each other for the first time, and were presented with the demands of the project, which was a combination of demands from two different clients. Then build three groups/companies based on our competences. Basically we were to make a book which contained a game for the age group of 7 to 12. Our theme was to be M. C. Escher, and his art. We started of with a brainstorm, and found an idea of using Escher as a child looking for things that went missing. The day after we were already testing out the concept. In our first week we also went to the library and the museum for inspiration.
2nd week
Brainstorm
Idea testing, concept building and sketching
Our group consisted of people with different backgrounds and graphical skills, so we spend some time aligning our concept to a concept we could all follow as well as a common style of drawing. We went out to take pictures, and tried to incoporate a real street, in which Escher has lived, into our sketches, to have a better shared visual idea, and to improve our concept of our main character being Escher.
3rd week
Sketching and starting to build web-page
In our third week, were went back to Denmark, and were told that we needed to start printing as soon as we could. This lead us to cut out some of ideas and focus on a less work demanding storyline. We continued drawing, and started to build this blog. Mostly to employ our web developer, and keep him (me..) from distracting the group with to many ideas.
4th week
Finishing up, and trying to meet the deadline for printing
The 4th and last week was the most horrifying. We were told in the beginning, that the similar projects in previous years had already been stress inducing. But this year it had also been cut two weeks. So the time was closing in, and everybody worked intensely on the project. Thursday, we finished the website, book, and printed the book along with other items, that were all going to presented to the public on friday.
