Brief
To illustrate iconic characters and scenes from your favourite Roald Dahl children’s stories. The illustrations should appear as if they are part of a published series.
I am a huge Roald Dahl fan and was even more enamoured with his work as a child.
I was INSTANTLY DRAWN TO THIS BRIEF because it would allow me to revisit those childhood passions and make work for an author whom I admire and always dreamed to work with (albeit not technically possible, so making work for his Estate would be the next best thing).
We believe that every child in the world should enjoy Roald Dahl’s stories just as much as we do. If you agree, then we would love to work with you.
The brief focuses on storytelling and narrative, two themes that drive my work in all areas of practice. This is absolutely the DREAM BRIEF. Everything I want to do as an illustrator and everything I expected it to be when I signed up for it.
The only concern I have is that Roald Dahl's work has already been made visual, specifically by the iconic illustrations of Quentin Blake. That's a big name to live up to and I might find it a challenge to tackle character design without echoing those well-known drawings that have gone before.
Target Audience
Our core audience for Roald Dahl’s stories are boys and girls of the future, aged between 5 and 11. They don’t necessarily identify themselves as fans of Roald Dahl – yet! They may prefer YouTube, their games consoles, or messaging their friends on SnapChat. You should aim to make them love Roald Dahl’s stories just as much as you did once upon a time.
Children's books are the reason I came to study illustration (although since then I have moved to explore other realms of illustration, it is still the communication with young imaginations that excites me), and working with children's books is still my ambition.
Children are an audience I am familiar with and enjoy making content for. My younger brother is 8 years old and definitely falls in the target audience for this brief. This means I have infinite access to feedback from my intended audience, enabling me to get his opinions and thoughts on what I'm making.
http://littlezosienka.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/quentin-blake.jpg
The Creative Challenge
We invite you to illustrate a series of iconic scenes, featuring at least three iconic characters from Roald Dahl’s inventive, revolting, wicked, or friendly stories in a style of your choosing. None of your illustrations should be boring, safe, or predictable. All styles welcome.
I've already had some ideas for what I would like to make. The concept of constructing a scene excited me and got me thinking about performance, puppetry, set design and costume. There are no restrictions on media or format, so I know that it would be acceptable to take this direction in re-imagining Dahl's work, so long as I am mindful of his tone of voice.
Mandatories
You can choose to illustrate between one and three scenes. Within this series, you should illustrate at least one child character, one villain character and one fantastical creature — whether this be a witch, a giant, an insect or an oompa-loompa!
You can select scenes from a mixture of novels, although the illustrations should appear as if part of a coherent series.
The illustrations should also compliment our logo - you’ll find some copies of this in the project pack.
I've quite a lot of Dahl's work before and watched all of the film adaptations, but reading through the list in the project pack, I've realised that there are a few titles I'm not familiar with! It would be a challenge to study and work with titles that I've not come across before, but I also think it would be much more a venture for me and may lead me to make more unexpected and inquisitive work.
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