It’s Juice Time
A Colombian tale about Friendship.
September 2020 – May 2021 · 32 weeks
It’s juice time! A book created for young age children. The storyline talks about a mischievous sloth and nice diva looking iguana that enjoy their days swimming around in the Amazon river located in Colombia. It teaches kids about friendship while bringing the beautiful Colombian culture into the United States.
Roles · Researcher, Illustrator, Art direction, Copy writing.
Skills · Research, Illustration, Layout.
Tools · Procreate, Adobe In Design, Adobe Photoshop.
Collaborator · Solo project.
Problem
Being expose to different cultures from a young age has been proven to improve social skills and empathy in kids. Some families choose to be part of exchange programs to have that new culture in their house every day. 10% of the participants of these programs come from Colombia and are face with language challenges that makes difficult to bond with kids. How can we create a way for kids to interact and learn from new cultures?
Solution
Create a Children’s Book that creates bonds between kids and new cultures. Showcasing the principles and values that people from Colombia have with an age appropriate story represented by jungle animals that can be found in the Amazon jungle.
Personal Statement.
This is a project that gave me joy and frustration all at the same time. When I first picked to work on these as a special project, I had only one idea in mind: I want to work on my illustration skills. I have been around kids the last 4 years of my life and It’s quite mesmerizing to see how their brain works around this big world that surrounds them.
For quite some time now I have wanted to create a children’s book, But I had no idea where to start or what to do. I would often ask myself, How can it be that I know nothing about kids while spending so much time with them? What do they like? what’s cool now? So I have a lot of work to do if I wanted to make this project happen.
With no idea on where to start I decided to just go and ask them. I needed some inside knowledge to see what are their preferences when it comes to books. What drives them to declare that one particular book is superior to the other hundred lying around the house? What makes them want to listen to the same story three times in a row?
And I can say after some struggle here and there, I still have no idea of why makes one book more special then other to their eyes. But hey! At least I got enough information to get me started, and go on my own jungle adventure.
User interviews
I interview three amazing kids in order to get a better idea of how to write/illustrate a book for them. I asked them about their favorite animal, their favorite color. We talked about books and make them pick their favorite ones out of the whole wide world to get an idea of what these authors did right by this kids.
Sienna, 4 “ I love mommy, she reads me bed time stories”
Having a story that has a easy to understand language is important. Most of the readers for an illustrative book are too young to read this books on their own or without help.
Ash, 7 “ I like books only for the pictures. Pop up books are the coolest, Bro!”
Having fun characters, that engage in fun adventures is important for the users. Having some kind of way to interact with the book while checkin it out (texture, pop up, fliporamas, colorful pages) helps keep them invested while reading it.
Bianca, 8 “ I like to read real stories, like about friendship. No silly stories, those are for babies”
Relating to the obstacles and struggles of a character helps kids to navigate their own personal lives and the fast changing world around them. The story needs to speak to them not at them.
Character Design
Main Character
Sloth: He lives in the jungle with all of his friends, playing pranks on the others and hiding away. He is mischievous, playful and a really good swimmer. He doesn’t mean wrong and he is set in his ways. And in It’s juice time, a lesson he is going to learn.
Iguana: She lives by the river, where the sun is in reach. Her floatie is her bestie, and she likes mango juice. Everyone loves her! she is so friendly and nice. Her outfit is rocking, she’s looking divine.
Secondary Characters
Tapir, Tucan and Anaconda: They are sloth's and Iguana's friends. They are so tired of the pranks and need a little break. They don’t come out too often, they preferred to stay inside. The farther away from Sloth, the better luck they’'ll have.
Storyboard
Once I got the characters and a story, it was only a matter of time that this book will start to shape up. I started with a book dummy to understand the flow of the story and whether the characters and the scenes had a nice flow. It look like scribbles at first. But after I sketched them up and gave their personalities a moment to shine, well the story was finally real.
