Due to my research and by thinking about my projects and interests I mostly will pivot with my topic in the direction on how to communicate animal welfare to children and a younger target group. In the survey the biggest concerns of the participants were that there are a lot of young people and maybe also very sensitive users on social media which may be disturbed and also harmed by harsh content. We all can see that the younger generation gets more mature and is dulled by all the graphic content on the web. There are also not really good mechanisms to protect younger ones on the web – you just need to click accept on a mask and then instagram will show you the content.
On the one hand it is important to show the images and to show people the reality but on the other hand it is important to balance it out so you do not harm children – as we are surely not capable of keeping them out of the web until a proper age. Of course there are age limits (13 years old as far as I know) but I myself also did cheat with my age when I was 13 and you did need to be 14 for facebook. Adults and parents are often not aware of how their children navigate through the web. But this in general is a whole nother topic. Maybe I will touch it in another post.
So with this introduction I want to say that I will now get more into how to visualize content for children so that it is understandable and they are more aware about these topics without disturbing them and tarnishing the children’s comfort.
The first person who came to my mind with illustrating for children is Sha’an d’Anthes (FurryLittlePeach) – an artist and illustrator from Australia – who has already published two children books herself and has a very intriguing and remarkable style. Years prior I followed her on social media and followed her process and was then already inspired to create visuals like her.
So now for analyzing her work: For this I also rewatched Videos of hers in connection to this topic.
Her books are: Zoom – a story through the galaxy to explain this to children. And Bandits – a story about friendship and appreciating nature.
She herself describes it like this: vibrant and joyful pieces that embody a childlike way of looking at the world.
Her colors are mostly vibrant but due to the project and her picture book she adapts the colors to the story. Her work is mostly done with traditional media like watercolor and pencils and then combined and edited afterwards if necessary – depending on the project. Her paintings are done in different layers and also often she uses a wash as a background and then works her way up with darker washes on top.
I thinkt her style is very cute and in a way simple but still understandable and with all the textures and rough coloring it gets an authentic look. In the next part I will try to get some answers from experts with childrens (teachers) and see what their opinion is on how to communciate animal welfare and which visuals work for children.
The outcome is not fixed yet but I am thinking it will be one big or more smaller illustrations about specific animal welfare topics in a style which is also suitable for children and then they are presented in maybe a mural or in a book style.
