A Need for a Throw Back

Recently, I was given a job illustrating a children's book, and looking through old books I read when I was younger made me think about the early books and how they were illustrated.

Looking at something like The Canterbury Tales, how it uses not only the small pictures on the sides to help describe all of the characters in the group, but also the designs which lined the page and the use of calligraphy which show the first signs of graphic design.

Illustrations in books now, however, seem to be separate entities from the text within, as shown in Harry By the Sea, a book from the 1950s.  Though pictures in today's books also help the reader to understand what happens throughout a story, the two parts of the story still remain separate pieces.  

I feel that publishers of today should look at where books have come from, and use old illuminated manuscripts as the exemplar for future pieces.  The use of graphic design is just as important in a children's book as it is in in any other published material, and we just need to get back to that.

Canterbury Tales picture provided by:http://courses.washington.edu/hum523/dido/dido.notes.html

Harry By the Sea picture provided by:  http://memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com/2010/09/hurry-hurry-hurry.html