Carol+Goldenberg

Goldenberg, C. (1993). The Design and Typography of Children's Books. //The Horn Book Magazine, 69// (5), 559-567.

Goldenber's article emphasizes on how illustrators, designers, and authors work hand in hand to produce a good picture book for the readers. The illustrator and the designer complements the author in this creation so the experience is both enjoyable and educational for the readers. Goldenberg also reiterates that the different genres of text is tailor made to suit the readers interest and not all books are picked up by all readers. According to Goldenberg (1993), "Each book- whether picture book, poetry, fiction, or non fiction - has a personality as distinct as the individual who will read it or appreciate its illustrations" (p. 559). Hence, in order to lure the picture book reader, both the illustrator, designer and the writer must work well to help the book receive recognition. It is these people who can make the book valuable, attractive, and a worth reading experience for the readers. A picture book depends heavily on the design of the book and hence the designer must have expertise in several areas of art and design. The design must focus on the size, alignment of pictures, and the relationship between the pictures/illustrations and text etc. For example, //The Book of Snakes (//picture below) calls for a longish design since the animal is a long one. In addition to size, the page layout has to be well planned to please the young reader of such books. Careful attention is given to the kind of typeface for the chosen book.There has to be a symbiotic relationship between the text and the illustrations in order for the reader to benefit and stay focussed on the particular chosen book. The text must be legible, appropriate to the reader's age group, and enhance the look of each page in a book. Goldenberg invites designers to break the rules of design elements if necessary, but the designer is obligated to justify the deviation. A good exmaple of this kind of deviation from the norm is The Stinky Cheese Man & Other Fairly Tales by Lane Smith (you tube video below).

http://youtu.be/FOXKCwUmZyU

Along with the design elements, other elements of the book has to be addressed. These include cover page, title page, jacket, index page, bibliography, credits page. It is important to remember that we are designing books for the digital natives because of the technology revolution in our society today. Goldenberg (1993) righty posits that computer has enabled designers to consider various different ways to represent illustrations and text on a page these days. Overall, the jacket is the most important point of purchase for the reader. The jacket must be representative of the content and the mood of the book. Typography enables the designers to create a certain effect so the reader is attracted to the book as soon as he/she lays his.her eyes on the book. To accomplish this, the production manager plays a crucial role. On the other had, the designer takes care of the design aspects of the book and if there are any glitches in the first edition, they are corrected in the second edition. Goldenberg concludes the article with a call to consider both electronic and hard copies of a picture book and how both need to be designed carefully by quoting from the bible, "OF making many books there is no end" (p. 567) Reflection The text illustration relationship is created through the hard wotk of the illustrators and writers. Upon these rtwo people's hard work, the designers andpublishers work extra hard to make sure the work of art is properly presented and sold to the readers. This process reminds me a the family structure where the chikldren learn to coexist and learn to work collaboratively to make the place they live home. Each one has to coontribute their equal share to achieve success. When I pick up apicture book, I usually look for the aesthetic value in the pictures and look for how the illustration can augment my understand of the narrative or expository text. For example, if I were to read about bicycles, I look for illustrations that might help me put the different parts together. I am a visual learner, so illustrations can contribute a great deal in helping me understand the text. I also pick up books that are not too crowded with either illustrations or text. There has to be a meaningful balance between the both.