School Zone « Illustration Time

They say it takes a village to raise a child. In this case, it takes a team of really creative people to build a sweet, preloaded, educational tablet for kids. Allow me to introduce you to Little Scholar™. For all of the apps, videos, songs, storybooks, and more on this device (requiring no additional purchase), at $199 this thing is a steal. That’s my son up there by the way, the photograph is by Adrianne (or A. Adelle as she’s known on the side bar).

Visitors to this website might wonder what the regular artistic contributors to Illustration Time actually do for a living. Believe it or not we’re not paid to draw mermaids and cryptids—we just do that in our spare time. The six of us regulars (featured to the right) are some of the creative employees of School Zone Publishing. We’re composed of graphic designers, illustrators, animators, and more. Each of us has multiple artistic strengths and abilities. With our powers combined, we get some pretty awesome children’s educational product out the door. Because Little Scholar™ is our most recent (and epic) collaboration as a company, I thought it would be nifty to share a little about the device, from the standpoint of our creative efforts.

Above you can see our YouTube channel art. This was one of my recent design assignments for this project. The image communicates the scope of what you get when you buy a Little Scholar™—tons of full-version apps, videos, a whole Start-to-Read® program, a camera, songs, access to a store for more content if you want it, and a reporting app so parents can monitor the device usage by the little ones. Notice Brian Vander Ark from the Verve Pipe up there? Yep, that’s really him. He made the music for Charlie & Company™, a brand new educational show debuting on the tablet (you get four episodes with the device). With animation and live action, viewers meet Charlie, a golden retriever, and his friend Miss Ellie as they go on learning adventures.

YouTube requires a complex layout for channel art to accommodate several kinds of viewing. Online or on a device you’ll only see the design encompassed in the purple strip above. But if you’re viewing School Zone’s YouTube channel on a t.v. you’ll see the whole design (hence the additional graphics in the yellow area). It was quite the fun assignment to build a layout that accommodated all of these variables in one image.

Here’s a closer look at the device. Terry is responsible for the awesome illustration work—characters and icons—while I did the user interface (UI) design work for the OS (that means the look of the menus the child navigates while using the device). It’s meant to be a bold, fun, inviting sort of playground for the kiddos. Each icon gives a playful and obvious cue as to what’s in store in each area. You can also see that the device spans preschool through first grade. Below are the menus for each grade level, showing the apps packed into each. Note the color and character cues used to help the kiddos identify which area has been entered into, matching the main screen’s buttons:

A ton of work went into porting over existing School Zone content for the device. For instance, McCoy was the lead designer on I Like to Paint, a creativity/coloring app that you get with the device. Below is the icon he developed as well as sample screens of the UI. The UI McCoy developed is gorgeous, bright, and simple. My kids love this app, which is the true sign of a successful design for kids. Terry did the illustration work for this too.

Another brand new app, among several newbies, is Numbers Flash Cards, seen below. Again, all of this work showcases our team effort as well as the fact that we have very multifaceted personnel. For instance, although Adrianne was utilized for her professional photography skills, she also did the illustration work for this one. I did the icon and menu design work for it. At the bottom of this group of images I picked out five of the very cute flash cards she illustrated. One of the most enjoyable aspects of School Zone is that our employers are willing to give us opportunities to work in more than one creative department. Often our efforts to “try on a new style” lead to additional in-house opportunities.

I could feature a lot of other apps that we developed and/or tweaked for inclusion in Little Scholar™. But I just wanted to give a small taste of the monumental, loving care that went into this project. Here’s one of Joe’s awesome contributions. Besides animation and/or design work on several apps, he was also tasked to develop the interface design for the app store on the device (in case someone wants to get more School Zone content, or in case they’re looking for some Angry Birds or whatnot). Again, the illustrations are by Terry:

I haven’t talked enough about Charlie & Company™ yet. For this amazing new kid’s show, Terry did a lot of character design work, including the rendering of these very polished editions of the show’s cartoon characters. Below you can see a couple of large movie poster designs I got to layout that were printed for the premiere of the show (our boss wanted two poster designs for the event). I developed Charlie & Company’s logo design as well (created to match Charlie’s collar):

But what is the show like? Our crack team of animators brought Charlie & Company™ to vibrant life. Jessica was the ink and paint lead for the show’s animation. McCoy also did a lot of the animation work. I’ve got to mention Keith and Michele here too (we’ve yet to feature them on Illustration Time for their personal work). Keith not only led the animation team’s efforts for the show but also worked with Terry on the character development. The love and care he put into Charlie and the gang is very palpable as I view these characters. Michele is another experienced animator that helped to produce the animation work. They all did a great job. Here’s a clip of the show to prove it:

As a couple of last inserts, here’s a look at some package design images (another one of my assignments for the project). Following that is a cute shot of my daughter holding the device, again taken by Adrianne.

We’re very proud of our accomplishments with Little Scholar™. My wife and I got to test it on our kiddos over the course of its development. The finished product is a gorgeous work of art, super-durable, fun, and educational for kids—an amazing value at a great price. And it comes already jam-packed with superb content. School Zone has stood for quality educational products for decades, and you can capture a mighty part of that empowerment for your kiddos with this device. Check it out further at this link:

School Zone’s Little Scholar™