Crawling My Way into Design

At the same time that I was learning how to walk, the caterpillar from Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar was busy crawling his way through a week's worth of food each time my mom read the story to me.  I still remember the whole experience of this novel today as vividly as I did when I was a toddler.  By the age of two, I was already intrigued by the world of design.

The brightly colored foods in the book catch my eye first.  The richness of the colors suggest that the food gives off strong, delicious smells.  What is particularly interesting is that these colored objects are not realistic looking, although the shapes are recognizable.  Things like fruit, sausage, pickles, cheese, desserts, and candy are transformed into layers of collaged designs to depict the narrative.  The choice to use such stylized depictions of ordinary foods contributes to the appeal of the story.  It takes an event from nature, the life cycle of a butterfly, and presents it to an audience in a fun and unique way. 

Another captivating element of this storybook is its layout.  Each page has a hole punched out of it where the caterpillar has eaten his way through, giving the book a more three-dimentional sense as opposed to simply printing flat images on paper.  The holes make the book more interactive with the audience.  It creates a physical texture that indicates that the caterpillar ate through the pages of the book itself.  The integration of the words in the story with the pictures of the food and the hole in each page result in a comprehensive design that is universally understood by people of all ages, even those who can't read yet.

When all of the creative elements of this children's book are combined, the end result is a successful design project.  If this story had simply been a scientific explanation of the stages in the life of a butterfly, it wouldn't be nearly as memorable to me as a twenty-year-old.