Disappointing, but informative
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As an Illustration student, and now in my second year, I've come to notice that booklists can be out-dated and out of print. This particular book is another example: lacking in colour, which still staggers me as its a book about ILLUSTRATION for children, which renders most of the beautiful works collected in this volume rather dull and similar (Ivan Bilabin, for example, is not done justice!)
Also, some of the information on colour seperations and printing methods are way out of date: so don't be put off by the complexity of them. Not all illustrations have to be broken down into several thousand layers of colour BEFORE being sent off to the rpinters (Well, three layers, actually) and nowadays the illustrator has more freedom as to how his work is displayed and printed.
This book is also disappointing as it only seems to deal with flat illustrations: No pop-up books, Interactive or Board-books, which are extremely popular with children. However, I suppose this is a result of the books age.
The notes on spacial arrangement and composition are very good-my course just doesn't teach those things, so I got some use out of the book, and the names of several illustrators whose works I wanted to see in actual colour.
Not a bad book for those who are merely interested in art, but I wouldn't recommend it to any artist/student who wants to learn more about the publishing and printing processes.
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Brilliant Classic !!
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I totally recommend this book to aspiring or professional book illustrators. It is like a course in itself. It's not a coffee table book - this is mostly in black and white and the cover is not too attractive, so if you want pics I'd suggest Martin Salisbury's book on the same subject (which, however, is less detailed in my opinion). BUT Shulevitz's book contains a lot to read and think about. I like the way its written, balancing both theory and practice in much detail. Visual examples are provided to explain all points mentioned.
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get it right first time
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This book is a mine of information. When I first looked at this book I was initially put off by the poor cover illustration and the amateur edge to some of authors own illustrations, is this another one of those 'experts' who doesn't practice what they preach?. I was pleasantly surprised, for such a thick book on the subject each page is packed with professional content without ramble. I have a degree in illustration and there is a huge amount of material in this book that I wish I'd been taught on my course instead of having to find out he hard way, it's so useful to have it all splelt out. Throughout this book there are copious illustrations by other published illustrators and authours from a range of eras, many familiar (Maurice Sendak etc.) These are examined as examples for all the points made through out the book. One minus point (if there are any) is the chapter on colour separation for reproduction, there have been huge advances in reproduction technology since this book was first published and much of the information in this chapter is no longer an issue for illustrators, though having said that it is still useful to know how your illustration is reproduced. This may be one of the more pricey books on the subject of writing for children but for anyone seriously considering submitting work for publication it's most definitely money worth spending.
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An Excellent Broad-based Advice Manual for Illustrators
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The book starts with the vital differences between illustrated books and picture books. From there the author, a distinguished illustrator, describes story telling with pictures, planning the book's structure, illustration techniques and preparing for reproduction by printers and publishers. The book is provided with numerous examples from the author's and other illustrators' works, all of which are pertinent and very useful. The text is straightforward and clear, completely devoid of 'hype'. This book is very strongly recommended for serious illustrators and authors.
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