Diploma project : “Madame Butterfly”
This was the project created for my graphic design diploma. Our only brief was to choose something that would represent all that we had learned during our classes.
Even if I had taken both options of editorial and web design, I have a personal preference for editorial design and I really wanted to create a book for this last and important project.
As I love illustration and intend it to be part of my career as a graphic designer, I decided to design a book for children about G.Puccini's opera: Madame Butterfly. The book would include a cd on which I recorded myself telling the story, alternating with musical extracts from the opera. I intended this book to be for children age 8-12.
The finished book once printed (front and back) :
The cd
The process behind the illustrations :
Some elements of decor :
Some backgrounds :
I designed this book in the spirit of an opera : the characters would be the most important, there would be a few elements of setting that would remain the same throughout the story and the background setting would be there to create the general ambiance. The characters and the elements of the setting where drawn using pencils and a black liner, the backgrounds where done with dry pastels.
Having strong illustrations, I wanted the layout of the text to be sober so that it would not be competing with them (and create something overwhelming visually) but rather highlight them. The shadings on the “inside” scenes are designed as a link between the text and the illustrations. It also gives a more “intimate” feel to those scenes and creates a contrast with the scenes happening outside.
One word on why I chose this opera in particular : Madame Butterfly is one of the most played operas in the world and I wanted to make it accessible to children through this book and cd. A lot of operas have dramatic endings like this one and I think they are juste as interesting for children as “lighter” opera (like The magic flute from Mozart for example).
I also really appreciate the way Puccini's music convey the emotions in this opera and I think a lot of children might be receptive to that even if they don't always understand all the subtleties of the music or story.