"Kavitha's Tail" is a Children's Picture Book I designed from scratch as an Educational Tool to Raise Awareness on Child Labor; a prevalent yet often overlooked form of Violence Against Children in Sri Lanka.
My observations of the current landscape of children's picture books in Sri Lanka revealed a clear lack of design interventions; with a lack of empathy for its key target group shown by a clear disregard of children's color psychology, visual styles such as illustration techniques, child-friendly narrative structures, effective storytelling techniques and even appealing structural book design methods.
My children's picture book design project, "Kavitha's Tail" aims to make a difference in the existing local children's book design landscape followed through by a thorough research process of social issues, local contexts, illustration techniques and child psychology that helped curate my final design: A children's book I made from scratch!
The book follows the cyclic storytelling narrative structure which will have an impact into the structural aspect of the book design in the same. Here's a sneak-peak into the story through plot diagrams:
As a designer, my goal was to create something that authentically represented Sri Lanka's landscape and contexts; From olive-tanned skin tones, striking eyes and nose ridges to the vibrant colors of our cultural clothing and landscapes.
The key local context in "Kavitha's Tail" sheds a light on to the local hill-country-based tea estate community. The mood boards and concept boards I curated throughout my non-linear research process helped me envision a contextualized visual style for Kavitha's Tale.
Here's what my final illustration style for Kavitha's Tale looks like on some sample pages of the book and on the book jacket! These are hand-drawn and hand-painted illustrations I made from scratch for a 10"x10" board-based book.
Here's a video I shot and art directed that showcases the look and the feel of the final book prototype! I hope to digitize this hand-made creation and publish it in the near future :)
