A Children's Storybook: The Day I Find Sadness

The Day I Find Sadness

Graphic Design, Multi-Page Publication, Illustration Individual Project

“My name is Sadness, can I come home with you?”

This is a story about Sadness. Sadness looks like a blue cloud. This is a story about how to deal with Sadness. This is also a story about how to make Sadness feel better when you find him as well.

(2023)

Zine/Children's Book

Why can I not see Sadness at first glance?

The whole book is printed with transparent sheets separating each page. The contents of the transparent sheets are not visible under the initial dark blue background. Only when the transparent sheets are layered over the yellow background dos the character Sadness then come to life under the reader’s eyes.

From Pixel to Print

On the other hand, I was indecisive about how sadness should be illustrated. I landed on a simple cloud figure. I felt like it matched the personality of sadness in my book.

The initial idea:

I wanted to center a children’s publication around Sadness. I wanted show what it is like to become sad, what sadness feels like, and most importantly, what to do when you are stuck with the feeling.

I chose two main color themes for the book: the color blue represents the feeling sadness, and the color yellow represents happiness. As the boy interacts more and more with Sadness, his blob of happiness slowly shrinks on the pages.

I quickly had an idea about the main character. I wanted to create, a ginger hair boy who is innocent and curious.

The illustration:

InDesign Booklet Layout

I created extra page bleeds to take the offsets into considerations that occurs when one tries to print double sided.

Concept Generation

First Test Print

I liked the concept, but realized I couldn’t hide the content on the matte transparent sheets from the blue. In addition, I noticed that the colors printed on transparent sheets become a lot more saturated.

A New Paper + Color Correction

The new transparent sheet had a higher potential to mask the blue content. To achieve the desirable effect, I conducted a color test to see how the printed color on transparent paper and normal paper differed. I wanted to adjust the blue I selected for my book to better cover the transparent sheet.