Teaching To Strengths
Art Direction, Illustration, and Design
Teaching To Strengths provides educators with tools and teaching methods that they can use to support students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress. I thought that the perfect approach for this book would be to treat it like a mosaic.
My initial sketch (see bottom of this post), included mosaic dandelions on the cover. Dandelions are extremely resilient and rise above the surface, sometimes growing in even the worst conditions. An alternate sketch included a fish swimming upstream in what would have been beautiful stylized mosaic waves. Ultimately, the authors didn't think that a salmon or fish swimming upstream exemplified resilience, citing that for salmon, the trait is inherent. The dandelions were deemed too feminine as was the original title treatment which connected some of the letterforms and included a simple swash under the word "Strengths." In the end we went with conjoined oak trees; big, strong, and resilient.
My initial sketch (see bottom of this post), included mosaic dandelions on the cover. Dandelions are extremely resilient and rise above the surface, sometimes growing in even the worst conditions. An alternate sketch included a fish swimming upstream in what would have been beautiful stylized mosaic waves. Ultimately, the authors didn't think that a salmon or fish swimming upstream exemplified resilience, citing that for salmon, the trait is inherent. The dandelions were deemed too feminine as was the original title treatment which connected some of the letterforms and included a simple swash under the word "Strengths." In the end we went with conjoined oak trees; big, strong, and resilient.
