Do you have a place you might lose yourself in thought? Steal away to in your mind when you just need to escape a little bit? Wonder what the view would be like from over there? This project gave me all the excuses I needed to do just that.
It was on behalf of Open University and The Reading Agency, who created the Teacher’s Reading Challenge to help student teachers at the OU dive in to the expansive world of children’s literature, and explore and review books with their peers online. I was asked to create branding, web designs and various classroom and studying resources that would inspire and help the teachers learn and lead our little people in reading and literacy.
My concept was ‘Fantastic Creatures’. I wanted to create something where everyone—students and children—could find some common ground in illustrations that were all about escaping to magical, adventurous worlds and glimpsing just enough for the imagination to begin unfurling.
The teachers diving into kid's literature are 'fantastic creatures'; the children are fantastic, crayon-smeared creatures, and so are the protagonists in children's literature, diving into their other worlds – places of escape, fantasy, dream worlds, where (in our imagination) our best and most wonderful adventures may well happen.
Representing the books, the teachers, the kids and the challenge itself, these Fantastic Creatures appeal to a dream of escaping to places and lands to learn about life, ourselves and each other – what might we do in the face of this, or that unexpected thing?
I vividly remember the books I loved reading as a child, and all of them painted pictures of weird worlds and creatures with unique qualities that they put to brilliant, problem-solving use. The shapes and colours of these worlds were always engaging, compelling. I loved them. I love recalling them now, and I let them inspire me to knock down the boundary walls a little bit when I’m making stuff today.
The books are about fantastic creatures.
The teachers are fantastic creatures.
The children are fantastic creatures.
As spring comes, and we are all tentatively emerging from hibernation, why not channel that inner fantastic creature? I think we’ve all got one.
{Today’s Soundtrack: GoGo Penguin – Atomised}