ONCE AGAIN, I begun my process with a very simple mind map trying to organize my rather superficial knowledge of the animal kingdom into various geological physiological categories. The reason for this was to express the variety of animals one could find throughout our planet, and then from the plethora, pick a group of them to put on the cover. At this point it did not occur to me that I should have researched a little more before I began this process, and rather ignorantly, I proceeded to monotonously create drafts.

The first thing I did was go with my instinct and create a cover with the heads of a bunch of animals emerging rather abstractly from a blank background. Since the idea of fierce and ferocity appealed to me in this context (given my exposure to violence in a number of entertainment media), I ended up making a snarling wolf for the centerpiece. Also, naturally, the head is the most socially interesting part of body, so it makes it easier evoke some sort of emotional reaction from your audience regardless of their age; that I believe is a more technical reason for my choosing the heads and no other part. In a very raw sense, I find heads cool. As I type this out, I realise that perhaps I should have experimented with other options, maybe a tiny handprint with paw prints of a number of animals around it. Basically exploring the impact of using other body parts rather than resorting to the head without thinking twice.

However, after thinking about it, I realised that perhaps this illustration was too violent for such an age group (in my childhood, the books I’d read were rather soft and innocent in comparison to this), without realising also that the sort of entertainment you’d see made for children these days is created in such a way that an audience irrespective of age may enjoy it. Take anime for example, shows like Pokémon explore the theme of wildlife and diversity, while also retaining this sense of aggression that appeals to children between the age 7-11. Naturally though, having realised only the former and not the latter, I proceeded to make my next draft than work in the direction I initially took.

What I made next was a bit of a disaster in my opinion. The idea was to introduce the idea of animals not necessarily having look a certain way, stimulate a child’s imagination with respect to animals from around the world and their habitats. As a result, I ended up with a purple lion roaring in front of a cyan sunset in a violet savannah, with red trees with yellow barks, and green clouds enveloping the sun above. It sounds almost psychadelic in nature, and frankly it didn’t quite seem relevant to the topic either, even though it is a valid topic to introduce at a young age, a lot like thinking out of the box.

Finally I made something I was more satisfied with, something I felt safer with and yet I did not feel proud of experiencing that feeling because it came from an idea that was a lot more historically mainstream. Basically a bunch of friendly animals with a human among them.

I decided to take this particular idea forward and create a clearer, more refined illustration with a few more animals.

And then I proceeded to make the cover with text. I went with a 6 x 9 ratio for the cover. Essentially the cover is about 1200 x 1800 pixels in size. The font I used was Curse Casual Regular, something that is a little more juvenile and bouncy than your typical Helvetica.