SCBWI NJ Conference 2018 + Art Contest Image

Had my first NJ regional SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) event this weekend. Great time ... especially seeing old faces and meeting many new people.

My 11" by 17" entry image for the NJSCBWI "WONDER" art contest

THOUGHT PROCESS: 
The first thing I think of with the word "wonder" is outer space. Just staring at the stars creates a sense of wonder for me. So I knew I wanted that element in the image. I considered doing a closeup of a child's face inside a toy astronaut helmet, and in the helmet's reflection, the moon and other planets would be seen. But then I thought, instead of outside, have the moon appear inside floating over a child's bed.

The original pencil sketch concept for the SCBWI art contest

• I wanted the child dressed up in astronaut-like pajamas with a toy space helmet, but then realized there would be no personal interaction or expression without seeing the child's face.

• I wanted a question mark shape for the cat's tail in the lower right corner but I also wanted the cat to peer into the room, showing curiosity to what was happening. I had to compromise with limited spacing in that area.

• The lighting was another hurdle. Originally, I wanted a green glow, for a more mystical look. But knowing this would print out on my printer  -- green is a fickle color to control from monitor to paper. Then I re-considered, the moon usually gives off a blue light in night skies. So I saturated the coloring with blue, leaving only the reddish highlights to accent the bluish hues.

Color variation: The original base colors with white light highlights

To be honest, this image is not complete. I wanted to add more details to the room, such as a basketball, bookshelves, car toys and a ragdoll astronaut. The area above the moon was going to have a night sky filled with stars. But I was running out of time to print, cut and mount the image in time for the conference.

In this version, the foreground color was muted, white light highlights dropped, and the moon's size was increased.

RE: SCBWI Conferences 
I've gone to several SCBWI Winter NYC Conferences in the past, but I stopped going several years ago feeling it wasn't for me. The SCBWI Winter and Summer conferences are HUGE, with keynote speakers representing the top bestsellers in children's literature. It's entertaining and inspiring, but that atmosphere seems best for those already established in the market. The NJ conference is more personal and is a gathering of the people I see and know the most. Comparing the two, I feel that the NYC conferences are grander, but the NJ regional conference seemed more helpful. 

One problem I had at the conference was I could not find the rooms for the workshops in the hotel. The map provided did not help. I found just walking around reading every sign was the only way I could find the assigned rooms (of which two were relocated, which REALLY didn't help.) That never happened to me in NYC, which is about 5 times larger than the North Brunswick Hyatt hotel.

Concept Design: Furry Pet Costumes 2016

So here are a few pet costumes I designed for PetSmart Halloween 2016. PetSmart was looking for furry creature costumes. That made me think of doing something similar to the way that Muppet-like monsters are made.

Original concept designs submitted for creating a trio of furry pet costumes for PetSmart Halloween 2016

This is an excellent example of how a product is actually created from design. Above you see my original concept art. It gives enough detail and specifics to create the items our client, PetSmart, is looking for. But as you will see below, the details are altered to reach the price point that the customer wants. So small details are eliminated, colors are modified, and the final product is usually a simplified version of the concept art.

Many designers I have worked with in the past, would take such changes personally because they'd get too personal with their work. That not the right frame of mind in this business. Your job as a designer is to bring forth ideas to help improve business and sales. If your design is too expensive to produce, at least you can provide the manufacturer enough details to work with - so that a final product can be created for the right price. It's far better to over design with more details to allow the manufacturing department to figure out how the item can be produced, shipped and sold.

I noticed these costumes weren't selling in many local PetSmart stores. These items looked great with these dog images, but PetSmart decided not to put these photos on the costumes' hangtags. Overall, these costumes looked like furry balls on hangers, which were hard to figure out how they'd look on dogs. It's a shame that they had these photos made for posters in front of the store, but decided to save a minuscule amount of money by not printing the hangtags with these same pictures. It would have been far more efficient and cost effective to do the hangtags with photos and simply drop the cost of the promotional posters in the storefront windows.