Last week, Yasmeen Ismail was the latest illustrator to create a vision behind glass as part of Bloomsbury Children's Books Illustrated Windows project. And, boy oh boy, what a corker it was!
These windows are gorgeously creative, with Bloomsbury illustrators being given free rein to do whatever they darn well please. Each person brings something slightly different and truly special to the project, and I love how the illustrations look when they're blown up to enormous proportions!As you can see from the photos, the end results are spectacular.
The Illustrated Windows project was thought up by Emma Bradshaw, the wonderful Senior Publicity Manager at Bloomsbury. See below for a mini Q&A with Emma and more photos of the brilliant windows.
For anyone who doesn’t know already, tell us a bit about the Illustrated Windows project
The Illustrated Windows project is something I came up with to try and showcase both the emerging and established talent on Bloomsbury’s picture book list, and to support the many amazing booksellers and bookshops across the UK. The project is running throughout 2014 with at least one Bloomsbury illustrator creating a window display for a high street or independent bookshop each month.
Where did the idea come from?
It started with an idea I had for Independent Booksellers Week 2013; across the week I placed a number of illustrators in different shops doing all sort of things from school events to craft workshops and live drawing, and a couple of them created bespoke window displays. The results were so stunning I decided it was something we should do more of in 2014.
Which illustrators and book shops have taken part?
So far we’ve had:
Tom McLaughlin at The Falmouth Bookseller
Catalina Echeverri at Under the Greenwood Tree (which has sadly closed since)
Sophie Tilley at Booka Bookshop & Café
Suzanne Barton at Mostly Books
Paula Bowles at Hunting Raven Books
Debi Gliori at Storytellers Inc
Debi Gliori at News From Nowhere
Yasmeen Ismail at Pickled Pepper Books
You can also see the locations of all of the shops, and their stunning windows, by checking out the rather awesome Pintrest map our digital team put together:
http://www.pinterest.com/bloomsburybooks/bloomsbury-illustrated-windows/
Who else is in your line-up?
There will be more from Debi Gliori to celebrate the publication of her next book, Alfie in the Garden, with windows for The New Bookshop and Ebb & Flo Bookshop. And I’m in the process of arranging some others at the moment, but I’m afraid they are top secret for now!
Can book shops still get involved?
Absolutely! I’m so pleased with how everything has gone so far this year I’m pretty sure we’ll do it again in 2015. Anyone who’d like to take part should email me at [email protected] or talk to their Bloomsbury Area Manager
Thanks so much for answering my questions, Emma, I can't wait to see more!