Our work experience by Archie and Ciara

What have you worked on at Miles Kelly?

Ciara: This week, I have done a variety of things from designing my own book cover to going through nearly 8000 fonts! Every part of it has been enjoyable and it’s a really good insight into what book publishing involves. I’ve worked on bolding, artist briefs, market research, drawing rough sketches for covers, image research, designed book covers in InDesign, social media research and correcting product development sheets.

Archie: I have worked on 100 Facts Spiders by looking for images of spiders, market researching, and redesigning the cover (new font, new cover image), I have worked on a ‘Project Dinosaurs’ book where I did some artist research to find someone that has a good style, and I have done artwork commissioning for ‘The Frog Prince’ where I described what the artist should include for each page.

Archie's designs for 100 Facts Spiders 

What has been your favourite task?

Archie: Working on 100 Facts Spiders because when I was finding images of spiders, time was just flying by for some reason. Most of the spider images were of jumping spiders which look very cute, so it was like looking at kittens… but not really.

Ciara: My favourite task was writing the artist briefs. They were challenging, but as I’ve never done anything like that before, it was really enjoyable and I never realised just how much thought goes into each illustration in a children’s book.

Ciara's Project Space cover idea

What has been your least favourite task?

Ciara: Searching through fonts as it took a very long time (although it wasn’t all in one go). Despite this, it was still fun at times because you constantly have to think about which font will go with what you’re designing.

Archie: Drawing up ideas for the ‘Project Dinosaurs’ cover because I hate any artwork I do because it’s always terrible!