Professional Project Learning Agreement

With the introduction of kindles, iPads and other electronic innovations books are becoming less popular, particularly to teenagers and young adults.  I would like to combine my interest in language with that of illustration by exploring the relationship between text and images to make the book visually more appealing and collectable.  Text is often uniform and visually uninteresting in poetry books, to over come this I will discover a technique to combine the text with the image whilst being influenced by the flow of language, meter, cadences, emphasis and emotion to dictate how the text is presented visually.  Whilst this will make the text visually more interesting, it will also help the reader maintain interest and understand the way the text is meant to be read.

   I have looked at Sam Winston's work with language, in particular his dictionary storybook in which he questions our understanding of language both as carriers of messages and information itself.   I have also looked into pop-up books and books that change or develop the relationship between text and image.  In particular, children's book illustrators, Lauren Child who used language creatively in 'That Pesky Rat', and Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith who wrote and illustrated 'The Stinky Cheeseman', have successfully integrated text and image. These books work because they interact with the reader, as they have to turn the book to read the text as they follow it across the page.  This is an excitement that is lost as the reader matures and books become more visually uninteresting. Most books for adult readers use text simply to present the narrative through words as code rather than using the visual appearance of the words and letters themselves to enhance the meaning and add to the pleasure.  I will need to make sure the book does not look too juvenile, appealing to the wrong age group. I can do this by keeping the text small and readable and the images mature yet stylized.    

< Included in the references I will use for my combined typography and images are; ‘New Ornamental Type: Decorative Lettering in the Digital Age’ by Steve Heller and Gail Anderson, and ‘Hand Job: A Catalogue of Type’ by Michael Perry, both concentrating particularly on hand drawn typography.  I will also look into Lesley Barnes’ illustrations that combine poetry and words, and Rob Ryan’s books collaborating with Carol Duffy in which the poem is found within his paper cuttings.  I will also look at various books and magazines that concentrate on contemporary illustrations.  I will also look into historical art references relating to the time the poem was written. I will research into other books that experiment with the way images and text relate to each other.  I will also look at different illustrators, those who illustrate books and those who create images appealing to my particular audience.

I will research into who reads poetry, and where there is an audience whose needs are not being addressed. I will also question people as to their reaction to the poem, how it makes them feel and what images it brings to mind.  I will listen to various people read the poem aloud so that I can see where patterns occur and how people perceive the language.

Many poems have visual language creating instant images in the reader’s mind. Whilst I will take these into consideration, I will also look beyond the obvious imagery, and research deeper into the language discovering previously hidden ideas.

will need to look into paper stock, book binding and print techniques that would enhance my book, as well as consider pop-ups, pull outs and other ways to experiment with the way the page is presented.

Once I have decided on my text I will need to look into the size of my book, the way the text will be split and how many pages and illustrations I will need.