Hannah Warren Illustrates Nelson Mandela’s story
Hannah Warren worked with Laurence King Publishing to create the illustrations for one of Isabel Thomas's 'Little Guides to Great Lives'.
Little Guides to Great Lives is a series of children’s books by Isabel Thomas, celebrating the lives of amazing and influential people through history, including Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, Frida Khalo and Amelia Earhart
Hannah was asked to illustrate Nelson Mandela’s story, starting at his childhood and throughout all the challenges he faced and over came in his life. Here's a little insight as to how this wonderful project came together.
Q> How did you approach this brief?
Hannah Warren> Initially, Laurence King approached me through my agents, Jelly London, to create some sample spreads for the book, including selection of the 3 spot colours in which it would eventually be printed.
For one of the colours I chose to use an almost aqua green (Pantone 2239U in case you are interested) that isn’t so easily replicated in CMYK to make the most of the opportunity to use Pantones!
The next stage was to create pencil sketches, playing with the layout and the arrangement of text within the illustrations. It took some time to get Nelson Mandela’s “look” down. Drawing a very recognisable face in my own style was a challenge so this took some practice.