Five Senses Project
Illustration • Typography • Prototyping • Publication
Students were tasked with creating an educational experience for five to seven year old’s on one of the five senses. The goal of the project was to create an interactive educational experience that was designed with the consideration of the target audience. Students were free to choose which sense they wanted to work with.
Taste Buds, a magnetic interactive book, is a hands on learning experience to teach children different types of taste. Characters and story were inspired by my cousin. In addition to the interactive product, I created a prototype for an email ad.
Duration: 5 Weeks
Materials/Programs:
Sketch & Research
I researched the benefits for hands on toys and educational materials. Which helped me understand how educational tools can be helpful in the child’s development. I also did research into the cognitive and physical abilities of five to seven year olds to better understand the language, ideas, and interaction needed to be implemented in my products.
The visual inspiration for the book came from my cousin, who was five at the time. Some of the animals and their names came from various pets he had. From there I drew a storyboard to lay out the book flow and what animals to use for what type of taste. I also sketched out a to scale spread of the book.
Storyboard Sketch
Salty Page & Magnets Sketch
Production
The illustrations were created in Procreate and imported into Adobe inDesign for layout. I decided to start constructing the book and used the construction of a board book as the base. As this type of book is used a lot for children’s books because of how strong and thick the pages are.
I created two prototypes of the book, one a small thumbnail and the other a to scale eight page excerpt. I used the small thumbnail book as a color and layout reference. It later on became helpful in determining the width of the book’s spine. While the eight page excerpt was used to work out the mechanics of the magnets in the book structure. Both prototypes were helpful in communicating, with my college’s book arts technician, what I wanted my book to look like. The technician appreciated my prototypes, as it allowed him to easily understand how to construct it.
The book is made similar to a board book, made with blotting paper that was cut down to the size of the book. It was made over the course of three days with much accounting for the drying of the glue and reprints. The book spreads were glued to one another with a sheet of blotting paper between them. The magnets were then placed in a rectangular cutout in the blotting paper and glued between the spreads.
To Scale Prototype Spread
Thumbnail Prototype
To Scale Prototype Construction
Thumbnail Prototype Spread
Refinement
The challenging part of the project was the construction of the book, as my spreads didn’t print out correctly and the alignment when gluing didn’t fully match up. This resulted in some of the page numbers being slightly cut off. A change I would do is double checking before printing and placing my page numbers more into the page to leave some space, just in case the alignment is off.
Over the course of the book making process, while waiting for the glue to dry, I worked on creating a container for the food magnets. Within one work day I designed and created a magnetic pocket that would sit behind the front cover. This would look like the cat's mouth from the outside of the book and a refrigerator on the inside and house all of the food magnets.
Magnet Holder Construction
Magnet Holder Inside
Magnet Holder Outside
Final Product
I completed the construction of the book a week before the deadline, so my instructor suggested to create some sort of advertisement. I created a prototype email ad in Figma. I mocked up an email page and created an advertisement for the book that would take you to a fictional book store page. This added deliverable allowed me to practice digital prototyping and a different form of advertisement.
The overall feedback of the project was very positive, saying it was educational and well thought out. Many of my instructors, loved the book and suggested getting it published. In my free time, after the project was over, I tested it out with my cousin. He loved it and immediately understood what he had to do, where certain foods had to go, and could name the different foods.
Taste Buds Front Cover & Magnets
Taste Buds Back Cover
Taste Buds Front Endsheet
Savory Spread Without Magnets