We've been given our first literature brief with Pathways Into Children's Publishing! They're culminations of the sessions and workshops we do weekly and are set for mentees by publishers as an example and to reflect what it would be like to work with them as a commissioned illustrator.
It's something I've been looking forward to as I saw it coming up on the Creative Phase 1 schedule and I couldn't wait to hear what Nosy Crow had planned for us.
We met with Manda Scott, head of picture book design and Victoria England, editorial director for preschool via Zoom who gave us a very clear run-down of our first brief.
We were given a text for a story targeted at pre-school age children about a character called Noa and their first experiences at pre-school.
The brief was to complete x3 character designs for what Noa might look like, including varying positions, character turns and traits. We could include other characters that might exist in Noa's world and activities the pre-school class would do throughout Noa's first day.
I started by sketching out some very rough scribbles and notes for who I thought Noa and their friends might be in their various forms.
I decided on Noa as a curious little girl, Noa as a timid fox and Noa as a slightly rambunctious monster.
After submitting these, I presented my character designs and had feedback via Zoom with three representatives at Nosy Crow who chose their favourite from my sketches to progress with.
I then moved on to colour and final character designs which were submitted and I received fantastic written feedback from Nosy Crow with some very helpful advice for moving forward.
It was a brilliant experience, everyone at Nosy Crow was fantastic to work with, all very kind, helpful and generous with their time and expertise. I can't wait to see who we'll be working with and what we'll be working on for literature brief 2!