OUGD603: Extended Practice - YCN Collaborative Brief Jane's Contribution

Whilst I concentrated on developing the illustrations and books, Jane began to think about how the seven books could be packaged as set and any applicable promotion to raise awareness of the reading challenge within our intended target audience.

Initially we had decided to package the books similarly to a row of houses reflecting the content of each book with the idea that each story would be set in each house thereby linking the books together. However following a discussion we decided that this would be unrealistic in the time frame we had.

I still felt it was important that the their was a sense of excitement to finishing one book and 'unlocking' another as this would be something that would encourage the children to keep reading. I particularly liked the idea of somehow incorporating the concept of an advent calendar in which each window can only be opened on a certain day in order as I know this was something I personally found exciting as a child.

Jane made a few sketches and mock-ups and ultimately decided that the most practical solution would be to house each book in a padlocked draw which would be stacked on top of each other. The first key would be placed somewhere on the outside of the box ideally in shrink wrap and subsequent keys would be placed on the last page of each book fuelling the anticipation to finish the book.

The original structure for the box is made out of mount board and then covered with a design printed on standard 120 gm stock strengthening the frame. Each of the seven drawers was made out of cartridge paper which we tested and was suitable to hold the books for the purpose of a mock-up.

I am really pleased with the high standard of the box Jane has crafted. The mount board has been covered precisely by the stock with the design on it giving a professional feel which will photograph well. Initially we stubbled with fastenings for the padlocks which were quite heavy and threatening to ruin the structure however after some discussion Jane resoled the issue by designing and producing her own in acrylic using the laser cutter which worked significantly better.

Our aim in creating a box for the set to be housed in was to produce something that would ideally be a keep-sake and after the reading challenge was over would still be kept by the child which is extremely likely considering the high quality craft of the box.

Alongside this Jane also produce a series of poster advertising the box and the reading challenge itself as well as a flyer which included a money off voucher for the box set.