The First Hellos Documentation Book Pallavi Datta
The aim of the project was to create and co-create localized, contextually relevant informal educational artefacts, awareness programs and experiences for and with children. Community & Context: Tibetans, Bylakuppe Original text, design and illustration in English by Pallavi Datta Printed by: Kolor Kode Acknowledgements: Thanks to Dr. Geetha Narayanan, Director, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology Thanks to the support and guidance of Katha, Delhi Copyright Š Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology.
Contents Overview, background
1,2
Proposal
3
Research
4-13
Concept Development
14-28
Design Development
29-36
Reflection
37
References
38
Acknowledgements
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Overview Stories change perceptions, but who is telling the story and to whom? While there is plenty of content that abounds in fair skinned protagonists and talking mice, are there enough stories being told that are truly indigenous, inclusive and localized? Stories that do not talk down to a child, but recognize that a child is capable of being profound, even philosophical and that they can have an equal part in the process of creation? Through the interdisciplinary and participative nature of the engagement, the learning experiences created can dwell at
the intersections of Arts, crafts, oral traditions and livelihoods, People and cultures, Nature, environment and conservation, Places and educational spaces, Play and Learning providing rich opportunities to create and innovate a project that is unique. From imaginative, creative rendering to scientifically accurate representation, this project offered a space for dialogue, debate, sensitive and ethical questioning on a range of issues as viewed through different lenses.
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Background Design for children brings to the forefront the challenge of designing for the future. The challenge is to break stereotypes about who children are and what should be created for them, be it spaces, learning designs, artefacts in diverse media or user experiences. Probing further into the nature of influence adults have on children,
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the core ethic would be to keep alive their spiritedness, sense of wonder, inquiry, play and openness. Engaging with this sensibility will provide an opportunity to re-envision and re-interpret what it means to create for children by creating with them.
Proposal To open a child’s mind to the idea of companionship. My project is aimed at creating an environment for children to engage with dialogue among their peers in a classroom situation This would be the first step towards building compassion and being aware of the self in relation to others.
I didn’t have to look at it as a struggle. Your identity could be something you develop over a period of time through your experiences. One can learn to develop one’s tanget of thought while absorbing certain aspects of everyone else’s. Opening up one’s mind through conversation, dialogue is the key to solving a lot of problems in the world today, I wanted to simply this for children and present it to them in the most interesting way. One of way of facilitating dialogue is through building companionship. This is exactly what I aimed to do through my project spanning a period of six months.
Before looking at the contextual lens of a place that we would adopt, I wanted to explore the idea of identity and how children too sometimes struggle to find themselves in a flood of people. After my trip to Bylakuppe I started looking at this same concept of finding one’s identity through a very different lens.
twentieth century was a century of violence, let “ Ifusthemake the twenty first century a century of dialogue.
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- Dalai Lama (Beyond Religion) 3
Research
Recce Trip The place I wanted to explore and base my concept on was the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe in Karnataka, India. The lens that I adopted from the beginning of my journey was simplification. Bylakuppe as a space, was extremely calming and almost meditative. We had read up about the different schools of Buddhism that were practiced- Nyingma, Kagyu(pa), Sakya and Gelug. We interacted with the scholars and monks residing in the Golden Temple Monastery (belonging to the Nyingma school of Buddhism) and the Sera Jey Monastery (belonging to the Gelug school of Buddhism). Even though the methods of practice adopted by these two schools were different some concepts resonated through both. The Wheel of Life, which demonstrates the cyclic existence, holds in its hub the three poisons of ignorance (the pig) attachment
(the pigeon) and hatred (the snake), from ignorance stems attachment and hatred. I was fortunate enough to meet a Khempo in the Golden Temple Monastery (a Khempo is equivalent to a PhD in the field of Tibetan Buddhism) to whom I asked a question, ‘If I were to simplify the concept of ignorance, hatred and attachment being the three poisons for a child how would I do it?� He said I could convey in whatever way I wanted to, because storytelling, at the end of the day was my tool and I could spin the words in the most simple way to convey a complicated message. In order to put across the idea that the pig stood for ignorance one could maybe tell the child that the pig would keep returning to the dirty pool of mud no matter where it would be placed, because it do not want to or did not know how to experience anything new.
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I also happened to meet a Tibetan doctor, Mr. Namgyal and his wife Yangchen who stressed upon the fact that Tibetan medicine was essentially an amalgamation of the
philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism and science. Thus certain concepts in Tibetan Buddhism and philosophy resonated with the different people we met from different professions.
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A lot of concepts that were the core of the Buddhist philosophy were relevant to humanity at large. These realizations and beliefs that the community so strongly upheld was not something that happened overnight but nurtured in their lifestyle for centuries. On my return from the
trip I began to read His Holiness Dalai Lama’s book ‘Beyond Religion.’ It was Dr. Namgyal’s suggestion and it was inspiring to read his take on how the practice of some of our intuitive virtues can drive away violence and strife within us.
in each of us are the seeds of “ Inherent virtue and promise of leading a worthwhile
and noble life. Who we become very much depends, first, on what we habitually think, feel and do, second, on what we learn from others. A young child is like a wax tablet and it is the responsibility of his parents and the adults around him to engrave or mark himself with good habits.
“
- Dalai Lama (Beyond Religion)
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Audience I read up a little bit on Jean Piaget’s theory of development for different age groups in order to understand how their mind works. The preoperational stage (two to seven years) is when knowledge is represented by language, mental imagery and symbolic thought. There was a very well written article that I came across while doing my research for my target age group, which is three to six year olds. Some of the facts as cited from this article are as follows: Three year olds often enjoy being with other children and they now begin to play together more. They are in the process of learning that other people are real and have feelings. This implies that they can be upset when other people are upset. Taking turns is a skill they they learn as they approach four, but if they are upset or worried they might not want to share their own special things.
They will like to have choices but they usually can cope best if the choice is limited such as ‘you can wear your red shoes or the blue ones.’ They have definite ideas of what ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ are like, for eg, girls were pretty dresses and boys like Superman. By the time they are four they maybe able to draw a person. The person will probably have a big round head, with eyes and maybe a mouth and straight out of the body will poke the legs. By four a child can hold a pencil correctly. The average three year old can understand 1000 or more words. Three year olds ask questions beginning with ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘why’. My only concern was that three year olds might be a little too young but after my research i was convinced that they would not have too much trouble with the kind of narrative I was looking at.
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Illustrators and writers
Shel Silverstein and Sampurna Chatterjee were the key authors who I took inspiration from, for writing short and simple verse. In terms of illustrators, I looked at the work done by Quentin Blake, David Shannon, Sophie Blackall and Eric Carle.
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Market I went to Blossoms, Bangalore, to see the variety of children’s books available. Blossoms had a whole range of children’s books, ranging from fiction (including storybooks by foreign publishers like Scholastic, Harper Collins as well as Indian publishers like Tulika, Penguin), and non-fiction (including activity books and series of books titled, ‘ Know your’ for e.g. ‘Know your animals). There was a very clear distinction between the some of the Indian publishers as compared to the foreign publishers. This led to a lot of questions in how by presenting a piece of writing to children a certain way; we are actually helping them form opinions. Thus, the way characters are portrayed in storybooks can be a portal for children to look at characters in the real world. If the way these characters are portrayed in certain Indian storybooks are elitist, (for e.g. the merchant is fair skinned, whereas the common man who comes seeking for
money is bleak and dark-skinned) than the child automatically forms assumptions in his or head. But apart from that, the time of merchants and traders are foregone, children of the twenty first century are exposed to so much more that these folklores from an India they have never seen, that these stories cease to appeal to them. One of the major questions during the heated discussion in class, was, what is really Indian? How can an illustrator and storyteller effectively tell a child stories that convey something about their history in a way that the child would want to remember it? Or just make them associate with characters beyond Chota Bheem and Ben 10. In an age of technology, when it is becoming increasingly rare for a child to pick up a book at a bookstore, the pressure lies on educators and storytellers to make every investment on part of the parent count.
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Workshop Three of my classmates and I held a fun workshop for kids over a period of three days. The purpose of the workshop for me personally was to see how the kids interact with each other.Most of these kids (a group of 20 kids from the age group from three to eleven) were in a space with each other for the first time and it was interesting how their body language changed from the first to the third day as they became more comfortable with the space and people. We had quite a few games to loosen them up. The most successful of them was the rain game and ta dum ta dum ta dum. Both these were warm up games based on sound and movement. We had a professional storyteller come in on the second day. It was interesting to see how he captured their attention over a period of time with an impromptu story that was put together with the participation of the
kids. He told us that if we were dealing with a large number of kids in a space, it was important to keep in mind that some of them are always more restless. It was the way we dealt with the restless kids that would determine how smoothly a group activity would progress. On the third and final day we gave them story cue cards and they had to make a story out of it. The girls and boys automatically seperated. The girls came up with something unique and fantastical while the boys were cracking jokes and needed help to put their story together and act it out. Overall, the three days was a great exercise for us to get to know how children behave individually and in groups. I also read out my poems and asked some of them to enact it. The older kids were more eager than the smaller ones. The children also gave me inspiration for the characters for my poems.
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Some snapshots from the workshop that were taken by Kathrina. I designed the poster. (below)
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Concept development
Translating the idea I wanted to translate His Holiness’s idea of the individual v/s collective into something simpler for children where I could introduce to the idea of the other at a young age. I was also looking it at it from a personal inquiry point of view and how the some very simple things like school on the first day could be daunting for a child. I was looking a poetry as a medium from the very beginning, where I would try to address the larger thought through simple and sing song verse. I did not want the narrative
to definite and conclusive but something quirky and relatable. At three the child starts developing a sense of humour and like to repeat silly words. This is also the age when they start forming stereotypes in their heads. One of my goals was to prevent them from doing so. They start understanding physical concepts like tall, short, big and little. I tried to keep these things in mind while writing my text. In this way I could in cooperate the smaller ideas into the larger framework of companionship.
Some of the ideas I tried to weave into the narrative wereThe importance of expression Opening up minds to new people Initiating conversation
Overcoming shyness Making friendly words like ‘we’ and ‘hello’ familiar to the child Embracing different kinds of people
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Structure of the narrative Masculine rhyme:
I started looking at different structures of poetry, rhyming sounds and rhyming patterns.
A one syllable rhyme. POP- STOP
Feminine rhyme:
Perfect rhyme
A rhyme of two oe more syallables JEEPERS- CREEPERS
When the vowel and final consonant words match exactly. MUTE- PURSUIT
End rhyme: When words at the end of successive lines or sentences rhyme. The more she ate, the more she grew Until she reached five feet two.
Partial rhyme: When a rhyme is close but not perfect. FOUGHT- FAULT
Eye rhyme:
Internal rhyme:
When words rhyme in sight but not in sound COUGH-TOUGH
When words rhyme with a word or sentence such as, The old man on the moon sang his weary tune.
Half rhyme: When the final consonants match exactly, but not the vowels. RATS- HITS
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The final few Little Siddhu walked up to me and said, Hello Miss, I’m looking around, Is there a friend to be found? One I can run around with, And share a few jokes, Someone who is just like me But not quite.
Me. Me. Me. If you turn the M around it becomes We. We. We. We. If you say it again and again It sounds like you’re jumping in joy, And squealing Wheeeeeeee! They asked me to pick a friend, From the lot in the room There was big, there was small, There was happy and sad There was tall and there was short There was very very lost, Who do I pick? I don’t really know I went to the quietest one, And said, ‘I’m new here, Could I get to know you?’
Look left. Look right. So many people, What do I do? Do I scream? Do I shout? Or do I find someone In the crowd And go say hello?
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Developing a style Initially I started off by incooperating each poem on one spread.
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I decided to spread each poem over sixteen pages, to make the reading of the poems more effective. This was the first rough pagination.
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I tried to make the type as animated as I could in the first draft, to see if this style could work as a layout.
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The layout was working for me, but the characters needed to be more expressive and in sync with what the poems were trying to convey. So I started reworking the characters. This time I looked at references
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of children who attended the workshop. I picked Radha and Gauri ( aged three and four) and decided to base the mannerisms of the female protagonists on them.
Style 1- Realistic. Watercolour and pencils. The feedback I got was that that she looked older than a five year old, which wasn’t working for my narrative.
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Style 2 - Caricaturish. Watercolour and pencils. The caricature bit of it was working but lacked the vivid expressions the characters needed.
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Style 3- Caricaturish. Mixed media.
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Style 3 - Final style with colour pencils and fabric (physically pasted on paper).
Typographic iterations. 25
Dummy books
Pages from the ‘Me, We’ dummy book.
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Pages from the ‘Saying Hello’ dummy book.
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Treatment
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Design Development
Spreads
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Colour and type Initial colour palette
Final colour palette
The initial colour palette wasn’t working for the second and third book, I felt like they could be brighter, especially because it was for such a young audience
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQR STUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqr stuvwxyz Typeface: Bodoni Roman I felt like the heavy weight serif font worked well with the illustrations.
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Different elements
Packaging-a box made with 300 gsm laminated paper. The back has the details about the contents inside.
A guide for parents and teachers on how they can use the books effectively.
Also comes with activity sheets which the children can colour into and build stories around 31
1. Me, We- The first book of the set aims to encourage your child to think beyond himself or herself, in a very simple yet interesting way. 2. Saying Hello- The second book helps your child get over the nervousness of meeting new kids on the first day of kindergarten 3. Who Do I Pick? -The third book, describes playfully to your child all the different kind of children he or she may encounter. The three books were printed on 170 gsm matt paper with the cover printed on 220 gsm laminted matt paper. 32
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User testing I read my books out to a few three to five year olds kids. I tried to make the reading as interactive as possible. A three year old’s attention was quite fleeting, she was more eager to turn the pages whereas the five year old was more curious. I felt the length of the books was perfect for keeping the child engaged without them
getting too restless. The third book, ‘Who Do I pick?’ was most successful in drawing reactions out of the children. They came up with synonyms and actions for every character. They were extremely interested in the activity sheets. It was interesting to see how they coloured the same sheets differently.
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Reflection I was always interested in writing and illustration. For me, one is an extension of the other. Words inspire me to visually re create the feeling that they evoke, and sometimes it is the other way around. When it comes to designing for children, while one has to keep a lot of things in mind, a lot of it is also instinctive and heartfelt. I believe that the best part of being a child is enjoying the simple things in life which we lose sight of as we grow older. More than bringing a burning issue to life I wanted to propose a project that would help a child realize something about himself or herself. Every child is different and has his or her own perspective. This perspective should be encouraged. The Bylakuppe trip was enriching for me personally as well as gaining insight into what concept I wanted to adhere to as I move forward. When I came back and
read Dalai Lama’s ‘Beyond Religion’ I felt like I was introduced to this whole new world where the possibility of living in a better world wasn’t so utopian anymore. My concept and language was extremely simple so it was a task to bring it to life and make it as appealing as any other 45 page illustrated storybook. I stepped out of my comfort zone and illustrated characters that would appeal to a very young age group. I also explored typography and packaging and was able to use my graphic design skills to take my project one step forward. I think every little bit of this kit adds up to make it a complete picture. If I were to take this project I would take his Holiness’ ideas of compassion and discernment and develop a concept for adults. It could be as simple and fun while conveying something larger and meaningful like ‘The First Hellos’.
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References Beyond Religion- Dalai Lama Child development, 3-4 years-Government of Western Australia Jean Piaget’s cognitive development theory http://psych.colorado.edu/~colunga/p4684/ piaget.pdf
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Acknowledgements I would like to thank Srivi, Kavita and Meera for their constant feedback through the process of ideation, iteration and execution. Their mentoring helped me find a style of illustration that complemented my writing. I would like to thank all my classmates without whom this project would not have been as fulfilling and enjoyable. I would also like to thank: The Tibetan Community in Bylakuppe, their warmth and postivity was simply overwhelming. I would love to go back there for a different project that
would allow me to spend more time understanding them and their beliefs. Kathrina, for the all the great pictures that she took at all the right times. Naomi, for documenting my books with the children. Family and friends, for their patience when the stress would start getting to me. Shoumik, for being the most patient of them all. And of course Geetha Narayanan, Srishti and Katha without whom this project would have been inconceivable.
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This book was designed as part of the Undergraduate Professional Diploma Program for the academic year 2013-2014 under the project Katha: If I were Sky, If I were Story Project Mentors: Srivi Kalyan, Kavita Arvind, Meera Curam