Parragon License Design Team: Behind the Purple Door
(Huge thanks to Assistant Designer Rhys Kitson, from our License team for letting us have an exclusive look into his day-to-day life at Parragon!)
I live approximately three minutes away from work, which is super handy – just a hop, skip and jump away. I’m greeted at the office by a gentle aroma of coffee and early morning chatter about the previous evening’s activities. But the natter soon becomes a murmur as people focus on the day ahead.
A new Barbie movie is being released on DVD soon, which is exciting as we create books to tie-in with all the Barbie movies. We generally create 4 books to tie-in with each movie: a magical story, which is an abridged version of the movie, a 'classic', a full version of the story, a colouring storybook and a sticker scene. I have the proofs for the 'classic' to go through now and to check over….
The Barbie proofs look great so I am happy to pass it over to my editor to have a look and make any editorial comments.
My inbox is looking quite light so far today, sometimes it’s overflowing!
Next, I spend some time looking at the book cover for the magical story that we are creating for the same Barbie movie. We have tried to make this book cover really stand out, so we have added something called a 'lenticular' as part of the cover. This makes the picture look 3D. Lenticulars can be quite fiddly to set up, and we have been trying to make a small tweak to the art on the cover. I can see that it is still not quite right, (as I said it’s very fiddly!), so after discussing it with the relevant people, we decide to resupply the file with the amendments made. It will look ace in the end!
Sometimes I find myself staring so intently at the screen I think my gaze might burn a hole in it. Note to self: give my eyes a 5-minute break! It’s time for quick cuppa and onto my next task.
Next up is looking at one of our newest licenses, ‘Victorious’. This is Nickelodeon’s big new tween show, and we’re producing a top range of books to support it. We've been taking onboard comments from Nickelodeon along the way. My job now is to check through some of the titles and images, and check that they are all in the correct place on each page. As these titles will be printed in both the USA and the UK, we have two different versions of text, one for US and one for UK. Whilst they are pretty much the same language, a few words differ. It can get a little confusing at times, but we want to make sure that the right text is in the right place! Everything is looking good, so I repackage it all to make sure all the images and fonts match up too. Once that’s done it is pretty much ready to be sent to the reproduction house.
With that done, a fresh cup of tea sits invitingly on my desk and I approach my final task of the day, which is to create a cover and internal spread for a new Barbie Jigsaw book. It is still very early days for this project, and there will be lots of little changes that we make before the book is ready to be printed. This Barbie Jigsaw book should look pretty neat; I have a few good ideas for it. We want to make it look fresh and bold, but keep that core ‘Barbie’ identity. It can be more difficult than you might think!
With a cover and an internal spread created, I think it’s time to go home, my eyes sting a bit from staring at the screen all day and I have a 3 month old son at home waiting for a cuddle!
Warm-Weather Cooking Ideas: From Ice Pops to Burgers
The weather is starting to warm up in part of the world, and as it does many of us at Parragon are thinking about outdoor eating. Whether you’re camping outside or having a party in the backyard, we’re here to help provide some new outdoor cooking inspiration!
Our friends at the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award charity approached us earlier this year to see if we could lend a hand in their own summer eating adventures. The result is the Outdoor Eating app, available now for the iPhone, which provides a wealth of ideas about eating outdoors. Parragon has contributed a number of delicious recipe ideas, from Baked Camembert to Banana & Dark Chocolate S’mores. Best of all, proceeds from the app go towards supporting youth clubs, volunteer organizations, and schools. Learn more about the DoE here.
One of the easiest and best ways to celebrate warm weather when it finally comes is with a delicious ice pop. It’s a snack, it’s a dessert, and in our newest book Irresistible Ice Pops, it can even be a cocktail. With Ice Pops, we wanted to make warm-weather desserts easy, with real fruit and simple, affordable ingredients. What we learned in the process was that making new and innovative fruit and chocolate combinations is a lot of fun!
You can get Irresistible Ice Pops in stores now and try out five recipes in our free sampler download, available here for the US and the UK.
Of course, no outdoor eating experience would be complete without a burger. Our new book The Burger won’t be available in stores and online until August, but we have compiled a ten-recipe sampler to tide you over and fill all your barbeque needs until then! What should you serve at a party between the burger course and the ice pops and s’mores? We recommend keeping it simple and preparing ahead so that you can enjoy your own gatherings more – fresh vegetables with dip is an easy side to prepare, as are simple potato or pasta salad dishes. When in doubt or pressed for time, slice up a watermelon!
Check back in the coming months as we offer more tips for outdoor and indoor cooking on both sides of the world. Next up, we’ll tackle our favorite all-weather comfort foods.