BACKGROUND:
Stefanie Trilling, an artist and mom of two, became popular during 2020 and 2021 for her “Children’s Books for Pandemics” series which she shared on her Instagram. Trilling redesigned over 100 popular children’s book covers to better reflect life during the pandemic. People of all ages enjoyed seeing her witty parodies of books we all know and love. And even as we aim to move past this pandemic, the idea of redesigning and changing book covers can still be done. The redesign can fit any theme you want. For example, change Rainbow Fish to Rainbow Swish and suddenly your book is about basketball. Most importantly, have fun and be creative with your redesigns.
Stefanie Trilling’s story is amazing and inspiring, too. Trilling was not a practiced artist or illustrator. She was, and still is, a lawyer and a mom. Trilling, like many parents in 2020 suddenly found herself working from home, along with her 2 and 5 year old children. One day while entertaining her children with painting, Trilling decided to pick up a paint brush herself. She saw a children’s book–An Elephant and Piggie Biggie–nearby and started to paint the characters. As her mind drifted to the coronavirus, she began adding it to the painting. Trilling’s daughter and husband loved it.
From here, she began creating more of her works and sharing them online and quickly went viral. Trilling didn’t plan for this at all, but continued making her art to help people laugh during such a troubling time. Trilling is one of countless parents who has had to constantly adapt to the numerous challenges that were thrown her way due to the coronavirus. But she, similar to many of your parents, continued to work hard at her job so that she could provide for her family while also supporting them through the pandemic. And Trilling was fortunate enough to be able to find something that made her, her family, and others a little bit happier during a time of chaos.
OBJECTIVE:
Today you will redesign your favorite book cover. You will start by changing one small detail about it and then examine how it affects the whole cover.
Anchor Standard #2
-Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard #4
-Select, analyze and interpret artistic work for presentation.
Anchor Standard #5
-Develop and refine artistic techniques and work for presentation.
Anchor Standard #6
-Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Recently, artist Stefanie Trilling became popular through her “Children’s Book for Pandemics” in which she redesigned popular children’s book covers by changing the titles and pictures. What is your favorite children’s story? What does the cover look like? If you changed a word or two in the title would the theme of the book change? What if you changed one or two pictures on the cover?
Step 1:
Take a good look at your book’s cover. What do you like about it? What is the mood? What are the main objects and colors that you see? What might you change? What will you keep the same?
Step 2:
Using pencil start to redraw your book cover. Make sure to change items you are redesigning and keep all of the other key items. This includes color, font, and objects.
Step 3:
Using the coloring material of your choice, color in your book cover. Do your best to match the colors to those of the original book cover.
NOTES:
While your students are working on their pieces, be sure to show them some of Stefanie Trilling’s works and see how many original books they can recognize from her parodies.