Lara and the Wishbeings

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BRIEFING

John Lack, originally from Berlin, is a trainer at the School of Life Berlin. He leads seminars on personal development and cultural change in organizations, including Nonviolent Communication. He aimed to write his first book for children to narratively illustrate the connection between feelings and needs. Feelings are neither good nor bad, they simply inform us about the fulfillment or lack of fulfillment of our needs. Once we recognize this, we can better understand ourselves and others.

Lara is the main character of the story, she takes us into her world with the company of Sophia a cute fairy. The little girl wants to find out why people are sometimes sad, angry, fearful, or happy. "Lara and the Wishbeings" is a beautiful invitation to self-reflection and personal development for people of all ages, recommended from 5 years onwards. Bavaroise took up the challenge of illustrated 12 pages of the colorful world of Lara's feelings and needs personified in four little creatures: Selfie, Cuddle, Groupi, and Sporti.

Some of the features that John described to help us develop each character:

Lara is 7 years old, courageous, and has curly hair.

Sophia is a young, wise fairy who wants the best for Lara. Their purpose is to show her what she needs.

Wish Creatures: They should be illustrated in a way that kids are not afraid of these unknown, invisible beings but that they can create a positive connection with their inner world. It would be great if these beings have a neutral gender.

Cuddle wants to cuddle with everyone.

Sporti wants to run around, perhaps wearing sports clothes.

Groupi wants to be part of a group.

Selfi wants to decide on its own.

IDEA

The challenge began with numerous sketches until John felt comfortable with all the features. Each one was then colored with textures and gradients. The second part involved drawing each individual page with space for the text. Some minor changes were made, but in the end, it became a fluid working process with very positive feedback from John.

The third part was devoted to drawing the cover and back, as well as extra informative pages. Finally, the task was to organize the entire book with the revised text for printing. The result was an amazingly colorful book that was ready just before Christmas to be put on sale and sent to all the people who contributed to the project. We couldn't be happier to receive the first edition of 300 books from Berlin, and in the near future, it will be available in English.

"Thank you so much for these incredibly beautiful and touching illustrations! I am still overwhelmed by the beauty, delicacy, fantasy, and magic you created with these designs.
Looking very much forward to the English and Portuguese versions of the book!"

- John Lack (Testimonial)