A Guide to Native Horse Breeds

A educational children's guidebook based on horse breeds and their native countries around the world.

Although and editorial project, this was very different to any other work I had completed before. I found this quite a challenge to begin with until I found a clear audience for my guidebook which was aimed towards children. Once I had an established user this project was very fun and creative and having a younger audience allowed me to play around with some more interesting elements.

Most editorial projects I have worked on previously consisted of mostly continuous text combined with images, so trying to define different levels of information and use graphic elements to separate this was difficult and required a lot of experimentation. The guidebooks will be a series of all horse breeds separated into their native countries. This means that these books are small and compact (130x190mm) and therefore suitable for travelling and for small hands. They are interactive with the feature character 'Henry' who allows the reader to interact with the pages. The information includes a variety of levels to ensure that it is suitable for both older and younger readers.

To create more interest, the cover of the guidebook folds out to show a breed map. This will be country specific, but the dummy created was for UK horse breeds. The back cover also folds out to reveal a colouring page and sticker sheet for the reader to create their own scene similar to the one across the cover. The horses shown on the cover have a varnish finish which catches the light and attracts the attention of a younger audience.

This project was really rewarding and I found that getting stuck in the initial stages of the design process really allowed me to consider and understand my audience more. From this, I was able to create an effective guidebook where the readers experience was my sole focus. The images below show the design process and the final outcomes.