2. Children's Books
• Picture books (0-5 years) – Uses visual and verbal narratives in a book. Created with oil
paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil. The illustrations are as much a part of the
experience with the book as the written text. Simple illustrations which help tell the
story allow children to understand what is going on. They are first read to young
children by adults, and then children read them themselves once they begin to learn to
read.
• Early reader books (5-7 years) – These books are designed to help expand the child's
reading skills and uses pictures to explain the story alongside basic grammar.
• Chapter books (7-12 years) – Between the years of 7-9, short chapter books are
appropriate and have limited images and more writing, which is starting to become a
little more complex to help the child have a wide range of vocabulary. Between the
years 9-12, the child will be starting to read longer chapter books which doesn’t use
images to tell the story and uses words and longer styled chapters. There may be a few
very well illustrated images throughout the book but doesn’t take up a lot of room so
more writing is used.
• Young adult fiction (13-18 years) – Young adult literature shares the following
fundamental elements of the fiction genre: character, plot, setting, theme and style.
However, theme and style are more often subordinated to the more tangible elements
of plot, setting, and character, which appeal more readily to young readers.
3. Traditional Literature
• Traditional literature involves myths, legends, folklore and fairytales. Most
of these include using the following techniques to appeal to the audience:
• Anthropomorphism – this is where a certain animal/object has human
characteristics which are not capable to achieve such characteristics. For
example, the film Shrek has a talking and walking cat which wears clothes
and does day to day human activities.
• Magic – Magic is a big factor in fairytales and is acted as a normal
contribution to life which wouldn’t be seen in reality. For example, in
Cinderella the fairy godmother uses magic to change a pumpkin into a
carriage which isn’t possible in life.
• Happy endings – Also in children’s books, the ending is most defiantly
always a happy ending. This is so children find a positive experience from
reading it and not to not creating a depressing effect on such a young age.
• Stereotypes– This is added to the book to add a reality effect to the book
as there is a lot of stereotypical elements in life.
4. Fonts Used
• Choosing font styles for your book is very
important.Among the most common are
Times Roman, Goudy, Garamond, and
Baskerville. Children's books are commonly
set in a serif font, because of their clean
straight lines. The serifs help to guide the eye
from one letter to another making the text
easily readable. A sans serif font such as
Arial should be avoided for the main body of
the text.
6. Books By Age
A book designed for the
ages between 0-5 years
A book designed for the ages
between 5-7 years
A book designed for the
ages between 7-12 years
A book designed for the ages
between 13-18 years
7. Graphic Novels
• For graphic novels there are no set age to who reads
the novels.
• The artwork can be very experimental in design or
follow a more traditional comic book format.
• Graphic novels are typically bound in longer and more
durable formats than comic books, using the same
materials and methods as printed books. They are
generally sold in bookstores and specialty comic book
shops rather than in newsagents.
• Such books have gained increasing acceptance as
desirable materials for libraries which once ignored
comic books.
8. Layout of a Graphic Novel
• Illustration is hugely important in graphic novels.
- Illustration helps tell the story.
- It helps set the scene.
- It helps set the tone.
- It often allows for minimal text to appear on the
page. Text is usually reserved for brief description
and dialogue.
• There are many different styles of
illustration, from simple, black and white images
to experimental collages and everything in
between.
9. Examples of Graphic Novels
Inspired behind films and TV series and many recent films started out
life as and continue to be graphic novels, these are a few well
known examples:
• Watchmen
• V for Vendetta
• The League of extraordinary gentlemen
• Batman
• Superman
• Spiderman
• The Walking Dead
• Scott Pilgrim
• 300
• From Hell
10. Examples of Graphic Novels
Doctor Who
Spiderman
Superman
The Walking
Dead300
Watchman
Batman
11. David McKean
• The work of Dave McKean is some of the most
experimental work in graphic novels.He works with a
mixture a different mediums including
drawing, painting, photography, collage, digital art and
sculpture.
His work includes:
• Cages
• Batman Arkham Asylum
• Mr Punch
• Signal to noise
• Violent cases
12. Different Text Layouts
• JOINING BALLOONS WITH CONNECTORS
There are two instances where this is used. The first is when a character says two
separate ideas expressed one after the other. The second instance is when two
characters are speaking in a panel and the conversation goes back and forth
between them.
• BALLOON TAILS
If at all possible, a balloon tail should point to a character's mouth as if an invisible
line continued on past the end of the tail to their face.
• BURST BALLOONS
Burst Balloons are used when someone is screaming their dialogue. Burst balloons
typically aren't italicized, but are often bold with certain words enlarged or
underlined for even more emphasis.
• THOUGHT BALLOONS
Thought balloons have fallen out of fashion in recent years in preference for
narrative captions. The tail on a thought balloon is made up of smaller bubbles and
should point towards a character's head (not mouth, as in a standard balloon tails).
Generally you should have at least three little bubbles of decreasing size that reach
toward the character.
13. Different Text Layouts
There are four types of captions in comics:
Location & Time captions were formerly the same font as your dialogue only inside a
caption box and italicized.
Internal Monologue captions, largely replacing thought balloons, are the inner voice of a
character. These are typically italicized.
Spoken Captions are the vocalized speech of a character that is off camera. These are not
italicized but make special use of quotation marks.
Narrative captions feature the voice of the writer or editor and are also italicized.
14. Layout
• The earliest comics were always set up in a grid format, contained
within white gutters (borders). They followed the logical Western
method of reading – across from left to right + down to the next
level & repeat.
• The most common grids are the 9 and 6 panel grids. The 9 panel
grid is most useful when the story contains a lot of information.
• The compositional flow is the way the viewer’s eye is drawn
through the comic.
• You want to make sure the dialogue follows the composition flow –
if you can put the thought and speech bubbles right on that line,
that’s the best.European audiences read top left to bottom right so
if you put a speech bubble on the bottom LEFT and top RIGHT of
the panel, that may confuse people.
