Ladybird Books
A design competition in honour of the 50th anniversary of Vintage Ladybird culminating in the creation of a book to teach readers about graphic design.
Competition — 2015
As part of a university competition, a partner and I were tasked with designing a product inspired by Vintage Ladybird in honour of their 50th anniversary. After investigating the brand’s history and taking inspiration from their large collection of informational books, we decided to design a series of books to teach readers about graphic design techniques of the 20th century. Based on Ladybird’s traditional A-B-C format, each double-page spread contained information on different techniques and advice on how to use them.
Cultivating a similar image style to emulate the hand-painted illustrations was crucial. To do so, each photo was put through an image trace in illustrator then edited to achieve a softer feel. The book’s covers feature a series of overly happy groups of people, ranging in age, using computers to serve as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the gleeful exteriors of traditional Ladybird covers.
