Sonacirema Book
I’ve written and edited an adaptation for children's book of the essay “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner.
"Sonacirema" is an Illustrated Children’s Book. It was adapted to a double narrative: one side of the book presents the foreigner's point of view (directly adapted from Horace Miner’s article) and the other side presents the native's point of view about the same cultural aspects. In order to emphasize the counterpoint between "one side"/"other side" and to arouse interest for the different ways of reading the story, the book was designed in special format: as accordion.
This project had the fundamental collaboration of Professor Andréia Resende, illustrator Vinícius Gerheim and proofreader Cecília Cruz.
Process
-
Literary research
-
Ideation
-
Exploratory Interviews
-
Text adaptation
-
Accordion Format
-
Meetings with the illustrator
-
Editorial tests
-
Book writing and edition
-
Prototyping
-
Reading tests with children
-
Solving usability issues
-
Negotiations with Publishing houses
Project & Product Design
Story
My approach with the Sonacirema Book project was as a product designer. From the empathic phase until the negotiation phase I was thinking and working to create a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. I confess that I was more worried about the customers and readers. Mainly the readers, the children. I’ve learned a lot during the entire process about creating a solid product for clients, customers and readers (in this case: publishing houses, parents and children).
I’ve really enjoyed the full process even with the failures and with the bad moment of the Brazilian children’s book environment. My favorite part of the process was the maker part. Analyze, Idealize, write, edit to transform the book into a product that had the main goal to highlight the user experience. Thus, throughout the course of the project, one of my biggest occupations was to design a book that could elevate and deepened the reading experience.
One of the main decisions was to choose the accordion format . This provided high interactivity and several reading options. It gives the reader the choice to build their own reading path around two views of the same story. They can read one part first and then read the other part. They can mix the two sides of the story by reading a bit of each side. They can make a “star” on the floor to play and read without a specific sequence.
Another one was the collaboration with the illustrator Vinícius Genheim. We understood each other very well and the illustrations were one of the best parts of the project. I couldn't be happier about it.
