Alice in Wonderland!

I recently had the great honor of illustrating the cover for a re-issue of Alice in Wonderland for Scholastic Book Clubs. This really was a dream job for me, since it combined both illustration and hand lettering, plus it was such an awesome subject. Not only am I a big Alice fan, this year marks the 150th anniversary of its first publication, making it all the more special to have the opportunity to work on.

I don't normally show my process but I thought I'd show my initial thumbnails I submitted. The parameters were pretty open other than that the book would come packaged with a mini pocket watch, so that needed to be featured alongside the white rabbit and Alice, of course. 

The bottom left option was the one that was selected, which was a favorite of mine along with the top left. I was pretty surprised that it was chosen, mainly since I had taken the typographic liberty of line breaking up "wonderland." The revisions were only to flop Alice and make her look older and more tween/teen looking. Basically, I just lengthened her torso, cinched in her waist and slimmed down her face and there you go! 

Because these titles for the book clubs are reproduced at a tiny thumbnail size, it need to be readable at a reduced size, so I went with a dark background to make the title pop. It worked pretty well, since Alice's descent is kind of mysterious anyway. The best part was adding some angry flowers!

#tbt… power puff girls return!!!

Little known Jill Howarth Illustration fun fact: I actually did a power puff girls paperback (based on the classic episode, Bubble Trouble!) for Scholastic back when I was starting to try to transition from graphic designer to illustrator! This was back when I was fresh from Hasbro and one of my buddies in the illustration department (I worked in corporate design) had this job thrown at him by his rep and he didn't have the time nor inclination to work on it. I happily accepted not realizing at the time how much work it would really involve. I don't recall how much time I was given, but I wasn't the most accomplished vector artist, but by the time I was done, me and my trusty pen tool had become the best of friends. I wasn't given any parameters besides the obvious… keep 100% true to the brand and characters and tell the story in exactly 32 pages as told on the episode. I already loved the show, so that was a plus. I'm not sure if this is how most picture books go, since I haven't ever done another since, but it was totally up to me how best to edit the story visually on that set number of pages. I drew the characters to the best of my ability, but they still came back with multiple revisions, particularly to those giant eyeballs. I was pregnant with my twins at the time, but I managed to get it done. My only regrets are that they didn't let me do the type, (which ended up being the most heavy handed generic sans serif you can imagine) and they never gave me any credit for being the illustrator. And the cover sucked design-wise, but hey, I got paid! 

So happy that they are bringing this show back. McCracken's stories and characters were smart and the styling, iconic. Can't wait to watch!! Long live Chemical X!