I was asked by Daunt Books to create the cover for their Children's Short Story Competition 2017. With over 400 entrants from children across the country from the ages of 5 -16 years old, these were then whittled down to the 11 winning stories. I was genuinely amazed at the writing, imagination and the humour of the short stories. My challenge was to find a way to visually represent all of the stories.
I illustrated a key character or element from each of the 11 stories, such as Nutty the Acorn, Sprinkles the talking burger and the Efficient Elf. I then created a grid to contain the characters/elements with a limited background colour palette.
The back cover is then the same character or element but redrawn in the conclusion of each story. Such as the Giant who is murdered by eating the head of a Princes is tumbled over, the Scotty Dog who retrieves the handbag of his owner and the stack of presents by the Efficient Elf. It was such a fun project to do and great to meet the young writers who will definitely be the writing stars of tomorrow.