Research: Puffin Children's Award

The Wind in the Willows is a classic piece of children's literature  by Kenneth Grahame, which was first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality and camaraderie and celebrated for its evocation of the nature of the Thames valley.

The main characters in this novel are:
Mole - A mild-mannered, home-loving animal, and the first character introduced. Fed up with spring cleaning in his secluded home, he ventures into the outside world. Originally overawed by the hustle and bustle of the riverbank, he eventually adapts.

Ratty - Ratty (actually a water vole) is cultured, relaxed and friendly, with literary pretentions and a life of leisure. Ratty loves the river and takes Mole under his wing. He is implied to be occasionally mischievous and can be stubborn when it comes to doing things outside of his riverside lifestyle.

Mr. Toad - The wealthy scion of Toad Hall. Good-natured, kind-hearted and not without intelligence, Toad inherited his wealth from his late father. Spoiled, conceited, and impulsive, he is prone to obsessions and crazes (such as punting, houseboats, and horse-drawn caravans), each of which in turn he becomes bored with and drops. His motoring craze eventually sees him imprisioned for theft, dangerous driving and gross impertinence to the rural police. Severla chapters of the book chronicle his daring escape from prison.

Mr. Badger - Gruff and solitary, who "simply hate society", Badger embodies the "wide hermit" figure.  A friend of Toad's late father, he is uncompromising with the disappointing Toad yet remains optimistic his good qualities will prevail. He lives in a vast underground set, part of which incorporates the remains of a buried Roman settlement. A brave and skilled fighter, Badger helped clear the Wild Wooders from Toad Hall with his large cudgel.

After reading the book I definitely wanted to focus on Toad as I personally think he has the most character out of the four, and is the most interesting.

Examples of The Wind in the Willow book covers:

 This version of The Wind in the Willows is the one I seem to see most often in book shops. The design is very modern and very simple. This design has done what I'm hoping to do with my book cover, focus on one character (Mr. Toad). What I lie most about this cover is the use of colour. They have used a very limited colour palette and it works really well. I will keep this limited colour palette idea with me when I create my covers as I think it would work really well for what I want to do.

 This cover is very simple. This is another example of a limited colour palette so the opinion to do this for this book is very popular and seems to work very well. This cover is very repetitive, I'm not sure this is what I'd want on my cover as I've already explored pattern making in group of work and not sure its what I'd like to try and do for this project. This front cover could actually be used as a wrapping paper design because of the pattern/repeat used on it. If I'm completely honest, the colours used and the style of line work they've chosen doesn't really appeal to me personally.

 Looking through all the different covers for The Wind in the Willows, this is definitely one of my favourites. Its eye catching and detailed and really puts you where they are. (You feel like your there with them) I like how the whole cover (front and back) fit together and create one big picture. I'm thinking of using this approach in my work, I think its really effective and makes you want to open it and look at it as a whole. Also, I like the title in capitals and will keep this in mind when producing my cover.

This is a more detailed book cover compared to the first two examples, and in terms of realistic colour is closer than the last example. Ernest H. Shepard has definitely tried to make the characters seem more 'human' in this cover. He has used very realistic colours for the characters but has kept them slightly cartoony at the same time, which would help to appeal to a younger audience. I think the image is really effective on this cover, however I don't like the colour yellow/orange used at the top of the cover. I don't think it fits in very well, it does help to make the cover stand out and get noticed, but it isn't very appealing. Personally I don't think the red writing works on it either, like the previous cover I like the use of capitals for the title though.

The style of this cover is definitely more old fashioned to the other examples I've looked at. I like the strip down the bind, its very decorative and catches your eye. However, I do think this takes the attraction away from the actual cover because its more detailed and draws your eye in. I don't think this is very good and have to keep this in mind when creating cover, so I don't have something in the background taking the attraction away from the artwork on the front cover. The style used to create the image on the front is actually very interesting though, its rough but been softly painted. This is another technique I would like to keep in mind when developing my work as I've seen this style of working on a few examples of The Wind in the Willows.

I don't actually like this cover at all, you can barely read the title on the book because the colours clash so much and the blue is so bright the writing pretty much fades into it. I do like the detail put into the drawing, but as a whole I wouldn't take a second look at this book. I need to make sure I stay away from clashing colours like this and make sure the title is completely legible.

I looked at this cover because I liked the use of soft tones and washy backgrounds. I really want to use paints for my cover and I've been looking at a few different covers that have used paints to see what kind of techniques they usually go for. A lot of them seem to be very soft, light tones, almost like a simple wash over. This version is actually quite cartoony, if I'm going to use paints I'm hoping to produce a more realistic detailed piece that really makes you look at it and see al the different colours incorporated in it.

This is probably my second favourite cover that I've come across. The colours used are very calming and make the image very beautiful. There are a lot of different colours/tones in this image which makes you look really closely at it, so you notice all the little bits of detail added. The colours used are actually quite dark and then they've added the circle of light to make the characters stand out. I like the idea of using darker tons as I want to focus on Mr. Toad and he is quite a dark character in the sense of getting into trouble and ended up in jail. I think this would work really well for my cover.

This cover caught my eye because it focuses on Mr. Toad and the trouble he causes, it shows you the main things to do with him in the story, him and his motor vehicles. I like the idea of using the character  as well as an object that makes you know exactly who the character is. I like the way its been painted as well, I think some of the tones used are very effective and help bring the image to life. The only thing I'm unsure of is the title, the two 'The' just don't look like they sit well where they are, so I need to make sure I look at the position of the words in my title, because even little things like that can make all the difference.

This is another example of a painted front cover, again this one is very washy and soft.With this one though they have actually used a limited colour palette and haven't really put any detail into the image, its very simple but I think its actually very effective. It caught my eye, theres actually something very beautiful about the style they've used. I'm not 100% sure that the text works though, some of the words get lost in the bright yellow part and make it hard to look at/read, could be a simple change of size that needs to be done though for this example.

This is the final cover that caught my eye. I like the use of white space on this example, I think it works really well, you focus completely on the image on the front and it makes it really stand out. I love the amount of detail put into the image, however I think the font completely ruins the whole cover, with the amount of detail put into the image they should of used a more simplistic front as to not take any attention away from the image.

This isn't actually a book cover but the space used and the way they only had the Toad character in the centre really appealed to me and made me think about doing something like this for my cover because it seems quite effective, you know exactly who the character is.

I started to look at drawings other people had done of Mr.Toad after this as that is who I want to focus my work on.

I found that a lot of examples of The Wind in the Willows used this kind of style to produce their images. Very rough around the edges and then simple washes over the top to give them a bit of colour. Because this is such a popular way of working, I want to have a go and see if I can make it work in my style.

 

I've included this image because again this image has been pained and I like that they done a detailed yet light background and then used a black line round Mr.Toad to make him stand out to the rest of the image, this is really effective, because even though the whole image is detailed and interesting to look at you focus on Mr.Toad first which is important I think.

This image caught my eye because of how messy it is. The use of print/text underneath the image is really interesting. Using pages of the text from the book underneath the image would actually be very different to anything I've come across for The Wind in the Willows books, if I have the time I will hopefully be able to try this and see if it works. I think if your able to just about read the text it could really make the image the story.

 This is another example like the first one, where they've used a very rough edge to the image then put a wash over the top. The colours used on this example are very simple and aren't too bright. Apart from the green all the colours are actually very similar and almost just blend together, the green is the only part that makes this image stand out to me.

This is Disney's version of Mr.Toad, you can tell by the style of it that they created it as all their work is recognisable. They have made Toad very appealing for children, very cartoony and 'friendly' looking. I'm not sure they colours they've chosen are right as he looks more human coloured than Toad coloured but they are known for fantasy stories and make belief so making Toad more 'human' works for them.

This is one of my favourite images I came across simply because a lot of detail has been put into Toad's head but the rest of the image is quite simple. This really stands out for me and catches your eye. Even though there is so much detail in the image its still very cartoony and child friendly. This type of style could appeal to a whole range of ages.

I also watched the film that was produced in 2006. I found watching this very helpful to be able to get a real feel for the characters especially Mr.Toad (played by Matt Lucas)

I found it very helpful to see what a human version of the character would look like as they are meant to have human qualities. 

Each character acted their roles really well as the animal they were meant to be, it really brought the story to life and gave a very fantasy like feeling to the story, a feeling that animals could almost be human and act human.

I was able to get a real feel of Mr.Toad's personality and how reckless he is.

To begin with I wanted to have a go at creating a more cartoony image for toad. I did lots of trial and error before coming to this final image for Toad.

I'm really happy with how he turned out, I was trying to incorporated the style of having the rough sketchy edges then colouring over the top. I personally think it worked really well for this particular drawing.

When I added the image onto the template, I decided I wanted to keep the white space around the image and not have a background or anything taking the attention away from the image, like examples I came across, but because the back looked so plain without an image I decided I needed to add something. Because Toad is know for his motor vehicles, I wanted to try and create a simple version of the vehicle he drove.
This is the image I came up with, I wanted to keep it simple and wanted to use the sketchy edge style again to match in with the image on the front, originally I tried it without colour which just didn't work, so when I coloured it in I tried to use a similar colour palette to what I used on Mr.Toad.

I'm happy with how the car turned out. It's still got a very simplistic style to it and just adds a bit of colour to the back cover. I actually really like the sketchy edge style, it works really well for the characters etc for this book.

The other technique I tried was painting Mr.Toad. I think the detail in this image works really well and personally I think its very eye catching and makes you want to pick up the book to take a closer look at the image as a whole.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out, its quite realistic and quite dark as well which is what I wanted to try and achieve if I painted something.