To those of you coming to my blog for the first time, welcome, to those returning, thanks for coming by again.
This post is directed to those of you here for the first time. Please allow me to fill you in on a few details about what my thesis project is about.
In an effort to explore American culture, I found that Americans love to eat. However what we are eating combined with a very sedentary lifestyle has had a negative effect on our health. Unhealthy weight gain has resulted in a decline in our quality of life. This will have an even greater impact on the newest generation of Americans. Doctors are predicting that if our current lifestyle trends continue, children born today will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. My thesis was created as an attempt to re-direct this course.
Eat & Act: Grow Healthy with your Child is an organization dedicated to educating and empowering parents of young children to help parents instill the value of healthy living early in life. To do this, I wanted to create a forum for parents to talk to their children about healthy lifestyle habits. This is how SIMON, the lima bean was born.
Over the course of the last year and a half i have created a brand, written, illustrated, and designed a series of SIMON childrens books, as well as a hand book for parents, in the hopes of creating a partnership between parent and child. Each one's health depends on the other. SIMON's stories create excitement around healthy lifestyle habits, and it is a parent's responsibility to respond to this excitement and lead by example.
By addressing this issue early in life, health is approached in a preventative manor. I strongly feel that a battle prevented is a battle won.
Thanks again for stopping by. Lots of work has been done since the last few posts have gone up, soon I will be printing and binding, and before I know it May 15th will be here and it will all be over with. Well, the MFA thesis part. I plan to shop the SIMON books around in the hopes of getting them published. So keep an eye out at your local bookstore, you may just find SIMON sitting on a shelf. :)
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Final Covers, Odds & Ends
These are the final final final covers. No more changes! Or else I will pull my hair out. It feels good to finally complete something in this whole thing.
To get a closer look at the covers check out this PDF.
I'm preparing the Simon books for printing. That means buying stock photos, fixing images that run across the gutter, converting images to CMYK (per printer's request), crossing my t's and dotting my i's. When that is done, I'll send them out for one final crit, and then it's off to the printers. Meanwhile I'm working on finalizing who will have the honor of binding these things. I'm hoping to be holding these books in my hands by the middle to end of April.
You are probably wondering where the parent handbook is in all of this. Let's just say, it's patiently waiting for me to finish with the childrens books. Simon is the gem of my thesis, I need him to shine brightest.
Despite pulling all nighters already at this point in my final semester in school (on a Saturday no less), I'm thrilled with the results. It's good to do something I feel incredibly proud of. :)
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Simon Books
Well I made the big push this last week to finish my Simon Bean books and they look great! They are about 90% complete because there are some stock photos I used that I need to buy (so you may see some pixilation and the word "istockphoto" on some of the images), grammatical & spelling corrections, and a few design corrections I need to make with the typography and element to grid adjustments.
I've posted PDFs of each book below. They read basically how they would if you were holding them in your hand, with it starting with the cover, to the end pages to the opening spread, and so forth. I'm hoping to have these printed on a cream colored paper to add warmth to the illustrations. I'll know for sure once I get to the printers and talk to them about it and see if they can accommodate that request. I hope you enjoy reading them, and maybe you'll learn something you didn't know along the way.
Each book's story corresponds with a healthy priority parents should adopt into their family's lifestyle.
Healthy Priority #1: Regulate calories in liquid form
SIMON Wants to Rock Out
Healthy Priority #2: Reduce processed foods in your diet
SIMON Has Rumbles in His Tummy
Healthy Priority #3: Reduce your portion sizes
SIMON Tests His Strength
Healthy Priority #4: Adopt more activity into your daily life
SIMON Goes on an Adventure
The purpose of these books is to get parents talking to their children about these healthy priorities early in their life to bring awareness and a solution to the negative effects of the food environment and sedentary lifestyles that surrounds us.
I've posted PDFs of each book below. They read basically how they would if you were holding them in your hand, with it starting with the cover, to the end pages to the opening spread, and so forth. I'm hoping to have these printed on a cream colored paper to add warmth to the illustrations. I'll know for sure once I get to the printers and talk to them about it and see if they can accommodate that request. I hope you enjoy reading them, and maybe you'll learn something you didn't know along the way.
Each book's story corresponds with a healthy priority parents should adopt into their family's lifestyle.
Healthy Priority #1: Regulate calories in liquid form
SIMON Wants to Rock Out
Healthy Priority #2: Reduce processed foods in your diet
SIMON Has Rumbles in His Tummy
Healthy Priority #3: Reduce your portion sizes
SIMON Tests His Strength
Healthy Priority #4: Adopt more activity into your daily life
SIMON Goes on an Adventure
The purpose of these books is to get parents talking to their children about these healthy priorities early in their life to bring awareness and a solution to the negative effects of the food environment and sedentary lifestyles that surrounds us.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Simon Covers
Here they are! The completed Simon book covers. (baring any feedback from directors and advisors). I'm quiet pleased with 3 out of 4 of them. The Strength one is ironically the weakest. I think it's because the actual story is probably the weakest. But honestly, 3 out of 4 is a pretty good batting average when you've never written, designed, or illustrated a childrens book in your life. We'll see if in the next 3 weeks i get the urge to totally re-write that story.
If I don't re-write the story, I may re-visit the Strength cover again later. It just needs to be more dynamic, maybe making rope part attached to the ball at more of an angle would help. What's even more ironic, that cover also has the most clever play on imagery as you follow the rope to the back. I do need to re-work it, but it's late and I need to move on to something else.
I've also uploaded a PDF of the covers all opened out. The books are hardbound with dust jackets. So the covers are actually dust jackets that have a back, spine, and flaps. You'll find that the white elements going off to the spine side actually interact with things on the back of the covers. So to get the full effect of the covers click below.
Simon covers all opened up.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Brochure!
This week I focused on the brochure component of my thesis. Please keep in mind that this is the very first go at the layout and text, so this is definitely not the final. I've sent it off to my advisor for review, and will make changes based on his comments and on what I've already decided needs to change after looking at the PDF I sent.
That is how the process works... you try and try until you get it just right. But it's best not to mess around too much, because I have a deadline to keep.
The format of the brochure is that it is a Simon Bean poster that folds down into a brochure. This was decided because I want people to take this thing and read it. If it was just a brochure with pictures and words, more than likely it will just be passed up. But making it a FREE poster, makes it more appealing as a keepsake. The goal is to get Simon seen and acknowledged by both parents and kids.
I've actually referred to the brochure as "The Simon Guide: What this bean is all about" I may change the sub-title, because I'm almost certain that it is poor grammar. Hey, I'm not an english major, Okay!
I've uploaded the PDF I sent to my advisor, the link is below. It has some comments on each page describing what you are looking at. The large letters you'll see on each spread is just for communication purposes with my advisor. They are not part of the layout, so you can ignore them.
PDF Link:
THE SIMON GUIDE: What this bean is all about
That is how the process works... you try and try until you get it just right. But it's best not to mess around too much, because I have a deadline to keep.
The format of the brochure is that it is a Simon Bean poster that folds down into a brochure. This was decided because I want people to take this thing and read it. If it was just a brochure with pictures and words, more than likely it will just be passed up. But making it a FREE poster, makes it more appealing as a keepsake. The goal is to get Simon seen and acknowledged by both parents and kids.
I've actually referred to the brochure as "The Simon Guide: What this bean is all about" I may change the sub-title, because I'm almost certain that it is poor grammar. Hey, I'm not an english major, Okay!
I've uploaded the PDF I sent to my advisor, the link is below. It has some comments on each page describing what you are looking at. The large letters you'll see on each spread is just for communication purposes with my advisor. They are not part of the layout, so you can ignore them.
PDF Link:
THE SIMON GUIDE: What this bean is all about
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Parent Handbook Update
Last week I worked on developing the cover for the Parent Handbook. The one selected to build upon is below:
You can find the other concepts in a PDF by clicking here.
While showing these covers to my advisor, the conversation turned to this idea of how "Eat & Act" relates to Simon. Questions like "What is Eat & Act?" were asked. So I was asked to think about these things this week.
I've always seen Eat & Act as the name of a program who's purpose is to get parents talking to their children about healthy lifestyle habits. Simon is the way in which Eat & Act will go about achieving that goal.
Essentially Simon is a creation of Eat & Act.
For me, Eat & Act was never an organization. For lack of a better explanation, let's just say that Eat & Act is a fictional program of healthy lifestyle priorities developed by a group of doctors, dieticians, and concerned parents to educate and empower parents to get them to talk to their kids about those healthy lifestyle habits. Simon Bean is a character created to pass on the information parents can learn from the Eat & Act Parent Handbook to their children in a fun way.
It's true that, I've developed the Simon Books and character in a way that a parent wouldn't HAVE to possess the handbook to use the Simon books successfully, but it lays out a full scope of what the Healthy Priorities attached to the Simon Books mean and why a parent should adopt them into their family's lifestyle.
This explanation always made sense in my head, it seemed to make sense to my advisor. I just hope it makes sense to my Thesis final review committee.
Feel free to leave comments on this matter.
You can find the other concepts in a PDF by clicking here.
While showing these covers to my advisor, the conversation turned to this idea of how "Eat & Act" relates to Simon. Questions like "What is Eat & Act?" were asked. So I was asked to think about these things this week.
I've always seen Eat & Act as the name of a program who's purpose is to get parents talking to their children about healthy lifestyle habits. Simon is the way in which Eat & Act will go about achieving that goal.
Essentially Simon is a creation of Eat & Act.
For me, Eat & Act was never an organization. For lack of a better explanation, let's just say that Eat & Act is a fictional program of healthy lifestyle priorities developed by a group of doctors, dieticians, and concerned parents to educate and empower parents to get them to talk to their kids about those healthy lifestyle habits. Simon Bean is a character created to pass on the information parents can learn from the Eat & Act Parent Handbook to their children in a fun way.
It's true that, I've developed the Simon Books and character in a way that a parent wouldn't HAVE to possess the handbook to use the Simon books successfully, but it lays out a full scope of what the Healthy Priorities attached to the Simon Books mean and why a parent should adopt them into their family's lifestyle.
This explanation always made sense in my head, it seemed to make sense to my advisor. I just hope it makes sense to my Thesis final review committee.
Feel free to leave comments on this matter.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Two Posts In Almost One Day
I'm pretty excited about getting things up on this blog today I think. I figured I'd give snapshots into where each component is at currently. All of this is driven by my Marketing Plan:
1. Simon Books
I've already given snapshots of the Simon Books. So the rest of this is in regards to other things on my deliverables list.
2. Parent Handbook:
Right now, the parent handbook is 75% written. It definitely needs to be read over by someone who isn't me, and preferably by someone who is familiar with the english language on a writer's level. There are little to no images in the book at this point in time because I am responsible for all photography and illustrations that will go into it. Getting to the point of having images is just a part of the design process. First I wanted focus on the pacing of the text and then the imagery will help tell the story visually once I've gotten it done.
I've uploaded a .pdf of it's current state here.
3. Slip Case:
Starting the design of this this week.
4. Marketing Poster:
Right now I have just some very rough layouts for the major elements of the Marketing Poster. The point of this component is to create awareness of Simon and the Eat & Act program.
5. Book Point of Sale Display
Thanks to the suggestion of my advisor this semester, I was able to find a pre-cut cardboard display to use for my final presentation to add emphasis to my thesis as something that has publishing potential. I put it together and took some pictures of it recently then played around with laying out the graphics on it. This is all still very rough, but based on feedback from my advisor, large Simon's scale will remain the same, and there may be a separate Simon coming off of the header of the display. I'm thinking of doing the display's header in a vertical fashion based on the Marketing Poster.
Inside the trays I'm having custom wrapping paper made to line the trays. Here's a sample of the wrapping paper pattern. Then I may package the left over paper as another product of the Simon brand.
6. Brochure
My idea is that the brochure is a fold out Simon poster on one side and then information for parents on the other. This component will live in Doctor's offices, Free Clinics, and Libraries as a free take away for parents. The Simon Poster can be for the kids. The point being that this information goes home and has a presence. The style of the Poster will mimic the Marketing Poster. The style of the information will mimic the Parent Handbook.
7. Portion Size Poster
Haven't started this. but it will be small enough to fold and tack into the back of Simon Tests His Strength It will be something to hang on the fridge and act as a reference for Parents and kids about portion sizes.
8. Activity Reward Poster
Haven't started this either. but it will be small enough to fold and tack into the back of Simon Goes on an Adventure It will be something to hang on the fridge as well, or in the child's room. It will come with stickers to reward the child with when they participate in an activity each day.
9. Reward Stickers
I was recommended a great website www.moo.com where I could get some sticker books printed. Once I finish the 4th Simon Book I will finish choosing images for the sticker book. But right now this is how many stickers I will get in a book, 15 sheets of 6 stickers. This is what they will look like with some minor adjustments from recommendations from my advisor today.
10. Good Snack / Bad Snack Memory Game
Haven't' started this. It's a simple memory game idea in which the child will flip cards over to match good snacks with bad snacks or the same image of a good snack or bad snack.
11. Kid's Cooking Kit
Haven't started this. Was just recently developed, but bringing the elements together would be easy enough with some rubdowns and a mesh bag with a cardboard tag.
12. Magnets
You can get Inkjet printable Magnets... may give them a try. This mainly stemmed from the posters that will hang on the fridge.
*whew* I have a lot of work done but way more to still do. You should see the To Do list hanging next to my desk. It's going to be a long 2 months. I want to be done designing things by the end of January. Start Printing & Production in February, and bind books in March.
I want to be done with the bulk of my thesis by the end of March. Will it happen? Doubt it... but that's the goal I've set.
1. Simon Books
I've already given snapshots of the Simon Books. So the rest of this is in regards to other things on my deliverables list.
2. Parent Handbook:
Right now, the parent handbook is 75% written. It definitely needs to be read over by someone who isn't me, and preferably by someone who is familiar with the english language on a writer's level. There are little to no images in the book at this point in time because I am responsible for all photography and illustrations that will go into it. Getting to the point of having images is just a part of the design process. First I wanted focus on the pacing of the text and then the imagery will help tell the story visually once I've gotten it done.
I've uploaded a .pdf of it's current state here.
3. Slip Case:
Starting the design of this this week.
4. Marketing Poster:
Right now I have just some very rough layouts for the major elements of the Marketing Poster. The point of this component is to create awareness of Simon and the Eat & Act program.
5. Book Point of Sale Display
Thanks to the suggestion of my advisor this semester, I was able to find a pre-cut cardboard display to use for my final presentation to add emphasis to my thesis as something that has publishing potential. I put it together and took some pictures of it recently then played around with laying out the graphics on it. This is all still very rough, but based on feedback from my advisor, large Simon's scale will remain the same, and there may be a separate Simon coming off of the header of the display. I'm thinking of doing the display's header in a vertical fashion based on the Marketing Poster.
Inside the trays I'm having custom wrapping paper made to line the trays. Here's a sample of the wrapping paper pattern. Then I may package the left over paper as another product of the Simon brand.
6. Brochure
My idea is that the brochure is a fold out Simon poster on one side and then information for parents on the other. This component will live in Doctor's offices, Free Clinics, and Libraries as a free take away for parents. The Simon Poster can be for the kids. The point being that this information goes home and has a presence. The style of the Poster will mimic the Marketing Poster. The style of the information will mimic the Parent Handbook.
7. Portion Size Poster
Haven't started this. but it will be small enough to fold and tack into the back of Simon Tests His Strength It will be something to hang on the fridge and act as a reference for Parents and kids about portion sizes.
8. Activity Reward Poster
Haven't started this either. but it will be small enough to fold and tack into the back of Simon Goes on an Adventure It will be something to hang on the fridge as well, or in the child's room. It will come with stickers to reward the child with when they participate in an activity each day.
9. Reward Stickers
I was recommended a great website www.moo.com where I could get some sticker books printed. Once I finish the 4th Simon Book I will finish choosing images for the sticker book. But right now this is how many stickers I will get in a book, 15 sheets of 6 stickers. This is what they will look like with some minor adjustments from recommendations from my advisor today.
10. Good Snack / Bad Snack Memory Game
Haven't' started this. It's a simple memory game idea in which the child will flip cards over to match good snacks with bad snacks or the same image of a good snack or bad snack.
11. Kid's Cooking Kit
Haven't started this. Was just recently developed, but bringing the elements together would be easy enough with some rubdowns and a mesh bag with a cardboard tag.
12. Magnets
You can get Inkjet printable Magnets... may give them a try. This mainly stemmed from the posters that will hang on the fridge.
*whew* I have a lot of work done but way more to still do. You should see the To Do list hanging next to my desk. It's going to be a long 2 months. I want to be done designing things by the end of January. Start Printing & Production in February, and bind books in March.
I want to be done with the bulk of my thesis by the end of March. Will it happen? Doubt it... but that's the goal I've set.
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