'Moja norge. Ilustrowana podróż po Norwegii' is a children's book that I created in 2019 as my final project of the graphic design course in art school.
The book is filled with interesting facts and key information about Norway’s rich and unique culture, geography and language. The bite-sized articles are easy and fun to read thanks to the storybook-like narrative, sparkling interest in All Things Scandinavian among children aged 8-12. The simple papercut illustrations create a sense of wonder, excitement and magic, taking inspiration from a child’s preschool artwork.
Huge thank you to my graphic design leading teachers: Ryszard Paluch and Anna Chmielnik for guiding me through the process of creating this project.
The process
I created this project from scratch! I overcame many challenges and worked in different fields to achieve the desired results.
The problem
First I did the research for the book. I used surveys to assess the level of consciousness and knowledge about the subject among pupils of three classes (25-30 pupils in each group) in an elementary school my parents work in. I came up with a problem statement:
Children within the targeted group of age 8-12 have little to no knowledge and show very limited interest in the Scandinavian countries and culture because the sources of information accessible to them either don’t target younger audiences, aren’t comprehensive enough or don’t offer information in way interesting to them.
The solution
From the qualitative data I’ve gathered, I found out that there’s a market for a comprehensive source of information about the Scandinavian countries. What mattered to me the most was that the book I’m creating shouldn’t resemble a tour guide, but rather a compelling story/fairytale about a land far away.
To limit the scope of the project, and because my of personal connections and interest in Norway specifically, I chose this country to be my subject and inspiration.
I handpicked 21 subjects ranging from Norway’s main landmarks, through language and cuisine all to the incredibly interesting folklore. A lot of the information I decided to include in the book applies for the other scandinavian countries as well. Iwrote the text of the book using the information I’ve gathered and transforming it into a comprehensive, narrative-driven mini-article.
Then I created the simplistic paper-cut illustrations to accompany each article. The most important for me was the choice of colour - the limited palette made the illustrations and the layout of the book look cohesive.
At the final stage, I designed the final layout of the publication. It was crucial for the text to match and seamlessly blend with the illustrations. On some of the pages, the small illustrations accompany the text directly, making the page look a little bit like a scrapbook.
After many rounds of proofreading and user testing, I prepared the book for print.
