Questionnaire response from candlewick press

Jessica from Candlewick press answered the questions in my Questionnaire and she was beyond helpful she gave me a lot of information and starting points for more research. I am so grateful for her help, she made my report a lot easier. Here are her answers to my questions: 

Hi Melissa, 

I'm Jessica, the Art Coordination Associate at Candlewick Press. I'm responsible for scouting new illustration talent, maintaining a database of artists who might be right for illustration work on Candlewick projects, and matching illustrators with manuscripts (among other things!). I'd be happy to help you with your project. 

Do Illustrations in children's books respond to changing trends in colours and styles?

Yes, I think they certainly do. I think, in general, palettes are becoming brighter and more saturated, and with more white space integrated into the illustration. There is also a kind of counter-movement to this with muted colors that are very fresh and contemporary but done in a sort of retro style.  

     And there are certainly trends in styles too. Of course, digital coloring/drawing (i.e. in Photoshop) is a huge difference between contemporary illustration and that of 10–15ish years ago. I am personally not a big fan of the flat, digitally colored look, so I'm glad to see a swing back towards more textured illustrations now—both with traditional mediums like watercolor and acrylic, and digital art that looks more like traditional media. I think a lot of illustration artists are combining traditional and digital media too—creating physical paintings/drawings and scanning them to either tweak the work or digitally color the sketches. A few of my favorite artists also work in digital collage, where they paint lots of patterns and then scan them into their computer, creating collages without physically cutting and pasting anything. 

    When I think of art from 20ish years ago, I think mainly of a warm, slightly murky palette that's somewhere in between bright and muted, and realistic paintings. Now, I think illustrations are becoming much looser, less realistic, and incorporating more mediums into each illustration (so not just 100% watercolor or 100% acrylic, etc.). Though of course there are certainly a huge amount of exceptions here. 

    Looking at the Caldecott winners and Honorees (and, in the UK, the Kate Greenaway winners) over the years is a great way to see the trends, I think. For example: 

• 1993 winner – traditional watercolor; palette is definitely a bit murky; and characters are pretty realistic 
• 1994 winner – traditional watercolor; highly realistic style. (Note palette quite bright here—many, many exceptions to the generalizations!) 
• 2013 winner – mix of traditional and digital media; style is graphic, subtle, simplistic; palette is muted but still rather saturated with all the deep black—this is the kind of retro-muted style I was mentioning.
• 2014 winner – kind of harkens back to the older picture book look, but note that the human characters are much less detailed (especially their faces), and there is a lot more variation in the typography and page layout than in 1994's Grandfather's Journey; this is, I think, a very successful modern take on the old picture book style. 

If so how long does it take for the changes in trend to influence illustration?

This varies of course but I think not very long. There are thousands of new picture books published every year, and illustrators and publishers are always looking for styles that look different and will thus stand apart from the rest. I think because of this crowded marketplace, the boundaries are always being pushed to keep illustrations looking fresh and unique. 

Do trends influence your choice of illustrator?

Yes, we will certainly discuss what style of illustration will best complement a text. For example, if a text is very contemporary, we will often look for a similarly contemporary-looking artist, which of course changes according to present trends. We also sometimes pare more traditional texts with contemporary illustrations as a strategic way to set the book apart in its corner of the marketplace, or to highlight its contemporary attributes (i.e. a modern retelling of a classic fairytale). 

Are Illustrators given remits that reflect current trends?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this question! Happy to answer if you want to clarify what you mean by "remit" for me. Maybe this is a US/UK usage thing :-) 

     If you mean something like art direction(??) then yes and no—yes in the sense that art directors and designers will always gently push illustrators to give their best work and to evolve their style slightly with every new book. But no in the sense of pushing an artist to do something that isn't true to his/her personal artistic style… or at least a good art director wouldn't do that, though I'm sure it happens sometimes!