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FUN YUM

Branding / Editorial / Print / Typography
04-27-24
Children’s book collaboration

HOW COULD WE OVERCOME A LANGUAGE BARRIER TO DESIGN A CHILDREN’S BOOK THAT COMMUNICATES WITH THE LANGUAGE OF PLAY?

Fun Yum is an experimental children’s book project made to visualize play and exploration.

Starting this project with two other designers, the three of us quickly discovered the difficulty of a language barrier. Each of us was most comfortable in our own native language: English, Hindi, and Mandarin. Adapting to this problem, we turned this challenge into a solution.

We started with an intuitive illustration. We eschewed a deliberate plan, drawing instinctively as we worked independently and together. Each designer layered their own words, drawings, and digital collages on top of each other's work in sequence until we created a detailed landscape of shape, color, and play.

These drawings led to a visual language. The visual language led to characters. These characters led to an emergent brand: Fun Yum. This booklet captured the most interesting parts of these explorations as it expanded the style into its editorial layout and typography. The first in the series, we later plan to add more iterations to Fun Yum.