the Bus Home
In late 2014, aTrueFace.org, a student-operated homeless awareness program at The Art Institute of Tampa, created the Bus Home animation. The animation was designed to start discussions in the classrooms, and educate children about the misconceptions of homelessness.
problem
At the beginning of 2015, I joined aTrueFace.org to help design collateral material that would support the Bus Home animation. The animation provided an initial starting point for the campaign. The campaign’s goals soon became to expand the message that the animation conveyed and have it be told through other forms of media in the classroom.
process
We began by researching various items that could engage students in the classroom, such as comic books, board games, posters, bookmarks and more. We also explored how the characters were going to appear in print materials.
Different illustration styles were considered. Early on, we contemplated doing all the illustrations as digital paintings, but after further evaluation, a hand-drawn watercolor style proved to be more appropriate and relatable to our audience.
solution
the Bus Home Story Book is an adaptation of animation and simplifies the story while reinforcing the discussion in classrooms as part of a reading exercise. A coloring book was developed to take highlights from the storybook and allow students to explore the story’s ideas on a more intimate level. Additionally, an activity book was created containing puzzles and exercises that are based on the ideas and characters of the Bus Home.
infographics
Two infographics were developed to function as posters in the classroom. Each infographic aimed to communicate topics such as ways to get out of homelessness and the way surverys get conducted to help communities better account for their homeless population. The topics were simplified so that it would be easy to comprehend at an elementary school level while still imformative and aducational.
The illustrations and backgrounds of the inforgraphics maintained the similar water color style used in the books in order to maintain cohesiveness in the campaign.
the illustration process
All the illustrations in the Bus Home storybook were hand-drawn and scanned to vector line art in Adobe Illustrator. Once the vector line art was created, they were then printed to size. The prints were then placed onto a light table where a multimedia paper was then placed on top. Using the line art underneath as a guideline, the illustrations were painted with watercolors. Afterwards, the painted images were scanned with a tracing paper overlay to create a unique texture. The scanned image was then color corrected in Adobe Photoshop, and later placed under the vector line art in Adobe Illustrator to create the finished image.
final illustration
tracing paper sketch
vector outline
watercolor painting
my contribution
I was one of the three designer that worked on this project with the guidance of two advisors. My primary responsibility was developing one of the three books, the two infographics, the custom typeface and establishing the illustration style for the rest of the team to follow.
