Final Presentation Boards - Fairytale Book

Final Fairytale book

This is my final fairytale book. I have created a thick envelope to house the book and the papercut, to give it a more valuable feel and to give it a sense of quality. I have packaged the book as though it is ready to sell and have decided to use my shop branding to give it a professional finish and a context in which it would be sold (As I sell my handmade books and zines in my shop)

Fairytale Development - Stock

The stock for my book is quite important to the design as it is such a major part of the overall look and aesthetic I am trying to convey, that it needs some consideration. Below you can see I have tested some basic white paper, red paper and an off white/yellow coloured paper. I think the off white/yellow will work best with the deep red illustrations and will create a worn, vintage feel to the pages.

Fairytale Booklet - Layouts

The layout of the book will have a title page, an full page illustration and a thumbnail image for each story, with a drop cap for the start of each story. The layout also needs to be considered as I have used some very long stories and some very short stories which will need to be balanced out. Below are some layouts from my development of the book pagination...

Fairytale Booklet - Typography

For my book of fairy tales, the focus is on the handmade quality of the crafted book and the typography, so I thought the choice of typeface should be considered carefully. I wanted to have a typeface that was a serif as it is easier on the eye for legibility for the body copy. I also wanted it to have a vintage feel to it as I thought this style of typeface would compliment the silhouette style illustrations, that have an old traditional feel to them. I will use Georgia as the body copy font and will experiment with a font for the title pages.

Fairytale Booklet - Illustration development

I decided to use silhouette style illustrations as I would have liked to create papercut illustrations for each story but as this is too time consuming I decided that a silhouette style was just as appropriate and acceptable. After looking at the Guardian Fairy tale booklet for research and having a tutorial with Justin, I realised I didn't want to just replicate the booklet and I needed to make mine different to the Guardian. To do this, I decided I would change the colour of the silhouettes to a deep red colour that has a vintage feel to it. This will also influence my choice of stock to compliment the deep red. Below are some select illustrations from my development...

Fairytale Booklet - Initial Illustrations

These are the initial illustrations I have created for the first story, "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" During my tutorial with Justin, we discussed how I can make my book of a higher and better quality than the guardian booklet as well as making it different to the booklet I am using for inspiration.

I have decided to create silhouettes using a deep red (taking inspiration from the colouring of a Fox) to create a striking impact and will use black for the text(taking inspiration from a Wolf and its an obvious, easily legible colour) and a cream coloured stock to set of the deep red and give the book a more vintage, old fashioned feel of aged paper. Below are the initial illustrations:

Front Cover Design 1 -


Front Cover Design 2 -


Thumbnail illustration -


Title Page for the single story -


Full Page illustration about the story -

Fairytale Booklet - Theme & Chosen Stories...

The theme i have chosen for my fairy tale stories is talking animals. I feel this is something that would appeal to my target audience and something they would find interesting. The chosen stories are -

Gossip Wolf & The Fox
The Wolf & the Man
The Fox & the Geese
The Wolf & the Seven Little Kids
The Wedding of Mrs Fox

I chose to focus on talking foxes and wolves as this was a theme i found interesting in my lampshade brief and wanted to explore it further. I think the stories chosen are a good variety as they are of different lengths and are about different things. I will read each story and illustrate what i think best represents the stories that children will relate to and i ill be using paper cut illustrations (or scherenschnitte) as i think this fits well with the theme of fairy tales and folklore. I am also thinking about including a small collection of paper cut shadow puppets that children will be able to play and interact with.

Fairytale Booklet - Initial Ideas

These are my initial ideas for my illustrations to be used for my fairy tale book. I have tried to keep them simple and only have the simplest details to give the basic shape of the subject as this is how I would create a silhouette.