Situation: The Western Municipal Water District, a public agency in Riverside County, CA, providing water services, sought to engage and educate children in the region about water conservation through a chapter book and accompanying curriculum.

Task: As the Print & Design Manager at The National Theatre for Children, I was tasked with the art direction and design for books for students grade K-1 and grades 3-5, along with the design of the lesson plans provided for teachers.

Design Approach:

• After discussion with the writer, we decided to take a classic superhero comic-book-style direction with the illustrations. I reached out to Ted Slampyak to create our illustrations, and confirmed his contract and agreed upon a project timeline.

• I prepared a file of research and inspiration for the illustrator to reference and helped write character descriptions to guide the character design process.

• I wrote up illustration descriptions and provided reference images for illustrations that needed to reference specific geographic regions or buildings. After one round of rough sketches and client feedback, we moved on to the full-color final drawings from the illustrator.

• As client feedback was received at each phase, I distilled them and provided additional direction to our illustrator to streamline the process and address their notes

• Once all illustrations were received and approved by me, I assembled the final books, designed the covers, and did all typesetting,

• I studied the Western Water brand and created a template for the lesson plans that was cohesive with both Western and with the books they accompanied.

Conclusion: The Western Municipal Water district was thrilled with our final product, and as a result of this project’s success, they have hired The National Theatre for Children to audit all of their educational materials and programs. We received excellent feedback from educators as well.

Story by: Jon Taylor

Illustrations by: Ted Slampyak