Seven Haunted Crows Book by Mariela Katiuska Baez Ramirez is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award in Graphics, Illustration and Visual Communication Design Competition Category.
IronGraphic· 2020
Seven Haunted Crows Book
by Mariela Katiuska Baez Ramirez
Client: Maka Bara®
A' Design Award Winner in Graphic Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #92902The Design
About Seven Haunted Crows Book
Seven Haunted Crows is an inspirational fairy tale about a strong girl who lost the brothers. Seven Haunted Crows is very loosely based on Grimm brothers but that said, the readers don't need to know anything about the play to read the book. It is a sci-fi story set on the earth and in outer space about haunted crows and painful truths about a family secret. She decides to embark on a journey of reconciliation and bring her family together again. Along the way, she meets many friends who help her overcome fears and challenges.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award
Seven Haunted Crows Book is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Seven Haunted Crows Book is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Seven Haunted Crows Book is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Interviews
Design Interview
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
My main goal is to tell a story about our relationship with ourselves and with our environment, which implies the family and social relationship.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
My main focus was always to transform a classic tale into a story in the best possible way. I wanted the reader to enjoy the journey of this character through the images.
What are your future plans for this award winning design?
My plans are to talking with some editorials to see if this children's book could reach more people and see what kind of response it gets. Furthermore, it is an important reference for future publications.
Grand Interview
Your innovative blend of traditional Chinese ink with digital retouching in Seven Haunted Crows Book creates a unique visual language - could you walk us through your creative process and how these contrasting techniques help convey the story's emotional depth?
Both techniques represent an emotional duality. For me, Indian ink has a free language, a fluidity of its own, and when combined with digital techniques, it takes on even more character. My creative process begins by unravelling the story, then creating the characters and detailing how they coexist in different environments. Then the magic of creating textures with Indian ink begins. I collect each one and convert them into Photoshop brushes, which I use to complete the compositions.
The transformation of classic Grimm brothers' elements into a modern sci-fi narrative in Seven Haunted Crows Book is fascinating - what inspired you to reimagine this tale through such a contemporary lens while maintaining its core themes of family bonds?
Classics belong to their era, and that is part of their legacy. When I read the story, I wanted to bring it into a more contemporary setting. I liked the fact that, despite learning about her sad history, the girl decided to turn it around and break the curse. Embarking on the adventure of finding out who she was and learning the wonderful news that she had siblings made her a fighter for the truth, enabling her to find herself and free those who had been forgotten.
How did your background in film, video, and television influence the dynamic visual storytelling and scene composition throughout Seven Haunted Crows Book, particularly in depicting the protagonist's journey through Earth and outer space?
When you are a lonely child, your friends can be the most unusual. I have always loved space, movies, and books. Sometimes I think that the stars and planets speak to us in some way. That's where the idea came from to go out and look for her brothers in unusual places to exhaust all possibilities. Besides, the topic of space is very common at certain ages.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Seven Haunted Crows, is a moving fairy tale about a strong little girl. A day like any, she comes across a story of haunted crows and their painful truth about a family secret. She decides to embark on a journey of reconciliation and bring her family together again. Along the way, she meets many friends who help her overcome fears and challenges that left her with the most precious gift. Let’s join her in this fantastic adventure
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The dimensions of the book are 178 x 20 x 254 mm.
Poster promotional: A3, 297 x 420 mm. - Tags
- Childre's Books, Illustration, Graphic Design, Power Girls, Inspirational
- Production Technology
- The book was made in mixed media: Chinese ink and digital retouching.
- Design Challenge
- The research challenge was figuring out what to do with the story and how to find the right words as an artist. Most classics are classics for a reason because they contain stories that still speak to us, stories that endure.
- Research
- The research was almost experimental and associational in nature. The objective of the interpretation of the research is simply to develop through illustrations our similarities about subjects and doubts which children have. The intention of the project is to be a reference for the reinforcement of children's self-esteem and emotion management.
- Inspiration
- Children’s book explores what it means to be brave.
The illustration of Children’s books is one of the ways to inspire children in their language which is a dreamlike world, as well as Illustrated books, allow the children to clear up doubts.
This book was to emphasize the relationship between brothers and sisters and their special bonds. As well, it is about the girl who decided to be brave in her life. This is a reinterpretation of a classic book but rewrote in a special way. - Project Duration
- The project started in January 2015 and ended in August 2015.
- Operation Flow
- This book engages our children with reading. The story emphasizes the relationship between brothers and sisters and their special bonds. Each illustration is dynamic and adds to the narrative when read with somebody or alone. In addition, at the end of the book, the reader will encounter an activity with which to develop as a family.
- Team Members
- Mariela Katiuska Baez Ramirez
- Image Credits
- Mariela Katiuska Baez Ramirez/ Illustration/Graphic Design/Video
Sponsored
Explore Beyond Designers.org
Discover products, services and opportunities from our advertising partners.
More to Explore
Related Designs
Explore more award-winning designs from the same category, selected by merit.
