“Essential Life Skills for Boys” by Scott Todnem and “Essential Life Skills for Girls” by Lisa Quirk Weinman & Megan Monaghan help kids ages 10-14 tackle everyday life and tasks with confidence. Parents are frustrated that schools no longer teach basic life skills (about money, health, clothing care, etc.) and often feel they don’t have the time or expertise to teach them. Having an 11-year-old myself, I was excited to have him perform many of the tasks in the book to use as a ‘reference.’ 😉
It was a delight to do both the cover and interior illustrations. It feels like I'm getting closer to my dream of doing the cover, type design, and illustration for a book! Below I share my process for the interior illustration and I go into more depth on the cover design process here.
Mood Boards /Client Brief
The brief described an illustration direction that was informative, friendly, playful, and youthful, without being childish. Specifically, they wanted two-color illustrations with a vintage handbook, mid-century vibe. The characters were to be diverse and inclusive, with a target age range between 10 to 14. The art director selected some of my previous work and provided cover images for inspiration as a starting point.
Style Explorations
As a first step, I provided four directions based on my ideas and images from the brief.
Swashy cover + monoline and solid fills
Interlocking cover + monoline and ink wash fills
Vintage Boy Scout cover + dry ink and ink wash fills
Windsor/Clarendon-inspired cover + dry ink and watercolor fills
Roughs to Final Art
The team liked the lettering style in option four and the illustration style in option three. For the next phase of a project like this, the usual steps are something like this:
Create mood boards for diverse backgrounds, characters, and clothing.
Produce rough sketches, print, and refine on art board, and submit for review.
Review and incorporate feedback, add color, print and refine consistency across the set, and submit for review.
Refine colored sketches, address remaining notes and submit for final review.
Prepare files for printing.
