The power of visual storytelling with illustrator, Sarah Harrison
We are thrilled to introduce the 10th edition of The Story Corner magazine, dedicated to the vibrant world of graphic novels! In honour of the launch, we spoke with our talented illustrator Sarah, who has worked with us on every edition, to share her insights and inspirations behind the captivating artwork.
Sarah’s journey into illustration, inspired by her experiences growing up with dyslexia, highlights the profound impact of visual narratives in children’s books.
She has always believed in the power of imagery, using pictures to communicate and understand the world around her. This visual approach helped her to overcome her own hurdles and helped her to foster a lifelong love for illustration.
In this blog, Sarah shares her journey of becoming a children’s illustrator, her inspirations for each issue and gives us a glimpse into what it’s like to work with Bookmark.
Journey into children’s illustration
Sarah said that her early challenges with dyslexia led her to discover the communicative power of art.
Q: What drew you to the world of children’s illustrations?
A: I did a fine art degree and I’ve always loved communicating visually, painting, drawing. [Previously] I worked in schools and for the NHS, but I was always drawn to painting and drawing.
I found out about Bookmark through your social media channels. I loved the content that was being shared and thought it would be nice to work with a charity that is working with children and reading.
The power of images as a universal language [drew her to illustration]. And how pictures can capture different emotions. I’ve also always loved children’s books and I’ve got a lot more children’s books than adult books.
Q: What do you like about children’s books?
A: I have always been drawn to working with children as the scope of picture books and children’s content is a lot more fun. Often, they also have a lot more pictures than adult books.
I think you can connect as an adult with your inner child when you’re illustrating children’s content.
Inspirations
Through her illustrations, Sarah aims to represent a wide variety of characters so that children from various backgrounds can see themselves reflected in their stories.
Q: What are your inspirations when creating illustrations?
A: Connecting with your inner child and thinking ‘what did I love when I was that age?’
I’d say my inspiration was real life, because each of the characters is loosely based on someone I know or someone I’ve seen.
I like to draw a lot from life, like I’ll go to the park and draw passes by. Obviously I change the characters so they’re not recognisable, but ultimately, my inspiration is observing the real world and combining that with imagination.
Q: What was your creative process when creating illustrations for the Story Corner magazine?
A: Karen from Bookmark curates all the content together and will choose an outline of the stories and activities she wants to be in it. She’ll then send me a design brief and I’ll start by picking out key themes so the cover illustration will link to what’s inside.
I also think about who the target audience is and how the children receiving the magazines in the school can relate to it as I really want children to be able to see themselves or relate to someone who looks like them on the cover.
Obviously that can be hard because so many different children will read the magazine, but I think about having as many different characters as possible to try and achieve that.
Q: How do you go about making sure you represent people accurately?
A: Something I found really helpful as an image source when generating ideas is via marketing. On Bookmark’s Twitter, schools will often share user content of their class holding the magazine and it’s been lovely looking and thinking, what would children in this class be like as a character on the front cover? Or sometimes there’s also teachers or parents in the photos which is helpful.
So user-generated photos of the magazine is a great source of inspiration and that’s sort of like my primary research of who the readers and who will use the magazine, which I then use as a starting point.
Q: Is there anything in particular that you like about The Story Corner magazine?
A: I like that they’re designed to last. There’s a line on the back that says “I’m designed to last. Please keep me, share me, read me, reuse me.” And that’s to promote being more environmentally friendly and less of a throwaway culture.
There’s also a drawing competition in every issue, which is a nice thing for children to keep that’s interactive. There’s lots of areas to draw or write or to make it their own to keep.
I also like that there’s lots of different stories and ideas in the magazine that would appeal to different children.
Q: What do you hope children take away from your illustrations when they read the magazine?
A: I hope that it brings a smile and cheer to children, and that it sparks curiosity. Like what’s this character doing? I like the idea that it encourages them to read more.
Q: Do you have any memorable moments about how your illustrations have been received?
A: Bookmark did a competition to win a mural in a school, so I was sent to a primary school in Birmingham to paint them a big library mural based on the Story Corner cover.
I usually work from home and don’t interact with any children, but for this the children were actually there watching, asking questions and reading the magazine, which was great to see that in practice.
And if you’re making artwork, you always get honest feedback from anyone under 10. This little girl said “you painted them wrong, they look discombobulated”. I thought, what a great word! Then we went on to have a great conversation about vocabulary.
Working with Bookmark
Sarah has enjoyed working with Bookmark because of the shared passion for children’s literature and ensuring every child has access to reading resources.
Q: How does your role as an illustrator contribute to sparking the joy of reading among children?
A: I tend to use a very joyful colour palette. I also want the images they’re portraying to be fun. And I think, if I’ve had fun and it’s made me laugh while creating them, hopefully that will come across to whoever’s looking at them.
I want to encourage a child to pick up the magazine, to read it and to spark the joy of reading. If it’s really colourful and there’s something fun going on, like the characters dancing or falling over a piece of string with the cat, all of these things, that’s great.
I hope they’re all joyful images and I hope they all tell a visual story.
I did a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course for a while, and I love the power of images – that anyone can read them regardless of what your language is. So, if there’s children receiving the magazine who have English as a second language, the pictures are the same for everyone regardless of what you read and what you speak.
Q: What excites you the most about working with Bookmark and our mission to spark the joy of reading for children?
A: I really love that the end product is gifted to children, because that ethos of being a gift instead of sold for profit is really lovely.
I also like that every child can have it regardless of their background or how much money their family has.
It’s amazing how the distribution volume has increased. Because when we did the first issue it was during lockdown and it was a small project just intended to be 1 magazine made really quickly and just a few 100 or thousand copies. But the volume now that it’s printed and distributed is much higher, it’s really grown. And that’s all down to Karen and everyone working at Bookmark.
Meeting people I know who have children saying ‘we got sent home this from school!’ – seeing it out in the world is fantastic.
Q: How do your personal values align with our mission?
A: I’m really lucky to work with Bookmark because it’s a great charity to be part of, the work and the projects you do, who you reach, it’s great.
It’s really nice working with organisations that align with the things you’re also interested in and believe in.
We all understand the world based on our own personal experience and when I was at school I found it really hard. It’s probably because I’m dyslexic, that I’ve always struggled with the written form. So pictures are a way to help me understand things and I just want to share that joy.
Literacy opened so many doors as a life skill, being equipped with the power to read means you can do all the things you need to do as an adult.
Bookmarks motto of changing children’s life stories is completely accurate and I can’t think of a way to phrase it better than that.
