Week 1; Analysis of illustrator Lauren Child

After watching the documentary ‘When We Were Young’ during the first session, the illustrator who caught my imagination and attention the most was Lauren Child. Child is the author and illustrator of her children’s books, one of the most known being Clarice Bean.

From looking at Child’s technique in her work, it is easy to so that she is experimental, using cut outs of many textures, images from magazines and ect, and also using full photographs instead of creating the whole background. I visited her website, http://www.milkmonitor.com/, to gain further insight on her technique. The images were interesting, playful, and fairly unrealistic.

Some of the illustrations are full of patterns with many things to look at, some are more simple and minimal, focussing more on what the image is trying to convey. The illustrations can sometimes spread across both pages of the layout, with the typography being placed playfully around the images, in different sizes showing emphasis on some words.

For me these images are very suitable for the audience of children because of the bright colours and the sense of the image being childlike. Thus being said, it can also be appreciated by adults as you can see the composition, characterisation and use of colour have all been considered well designed. 

    Lauren Child (2012) FAQ’s. [Online] Available from: http://www.milkmonitor.com/faqs/ [Accessed 3^rd October 2016]