I have been getting some great reviews for Little Owl Lost, the US version of A Bit Lost!

It got Picture Book Pick from TimeOut NYC, and I also did an interview with FastCompany here. The owl fair trade toys that i mention will be sold from here very soon...

Also there is a really great review by John Warren Stewig, the director of the Carthage Centre of Children's literature over here.

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You can order it in the countries/languages below

Here are the first few pages...

                   

Click here to download:

a-bit-lost-is-out-tuFmgHlFfGJlBCluvqAz.zip (404 KB)

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My first picture book A Bit Lost was actually first published in Korean. I had met the excellent Borim Press at the Bologna Book Fair in 2007 and was blown away by their catalogue. I went over to visit them and ended up illustrating and making most of the book with them from Korea. Their set up is amazing so i thought i should post a bit about it.

The Borim Press office is in Paju Book City (above) which is a new development by the Korean government. Printing was actually invented in Korea more than two hundred years before Gutenberg 'invented' it and Korea has a long and proud history of printing and literacy. In order to promote and modernise the industry and put Korea on the worldwide publishing map they subsidised the setting up of Paju Book City. It was set up as a super high tech printing facility right next to all the top Korean Publishing houses. It is a very modern sustainable development built as a satellite town 30 mins from Seoul. It also has high tech looking wind generators (which never seem to be working? hmm...)
You can read more about it here. South Korea spends more of its GDP on education than almost any other country so the shiny educational buildings are a more common sight there than in Europe or the west.

The Borim office. The spaceship looking part is a children's theatre. Inside their publishing house is a children's theatre, a childrens picture book gallery (with waist high pictures) and a little childrens bookshop (with knee high tables). You can see better pics from their site. I was very honoured to be Borim's first non-Korean author.

The lobby/reception. The 'wavin' looking pipes on the right i had originally thought were some weird Korean office communication device....but i was told it was a sculpture. You can still talk into them though if you want.

The childrens theatre. I saw a nursery rhyme gig one afternoon (in Korean) for an audience of 150 expecting mothers. It wasnt really my thing so I had to sneak out the back.

The next door office. All the big publishing offices in Seoul moved out to here to use the shared printing presses/conference hall/facilities etc.

The high tech printing facility next door.

This is where my book was printed!

Having a meal with the Borim team. Jinsuk (my Art Director) Sangon (Production Manger who i lived with for a month!) myself and Ines Yoo (my Editor and the person who first introduced me to Borim in Bologna)

Jinsuk my art director in the best jumper I've ever seen... Happy Pig!!! YAY!!!!

The CEO of Borim Mr Kwon and his wife outside their beautiful home. They have a traditional stone ondol system in their newly built home which was also built by a mixture of traditional Korean and modern sustainable methods. They are a really interesting couple, Mrs Kwon is a traditional Korean musician (drummer)

I managed to stay for week with Mr Kwon and his family. In Korea everyone sleeps directly on the floor (the underfloor heating is pretty nice in winter and makes it hard to get out of bed...) The book is taking three times as long as i thought it would. Thats probably why im not smiling in the picture. Oh dear. I blamed it on the ondol. Check out the Kimchi pots outside the window. He collects them, there were a LOT of them.

Finally finished after 10 and a half months! Woo hoo!
Myself, Mr Park, Borim's editor in chief and Sang Me who did all the translation.

감사합니다 to everyone at Borim!!!!

If you are interested in seeing more of Borim Press and their outstanding books and illustrations take a look at their site. Its in Korean so its kind of hard to navigate but you could requst a PDF catalogue by email.

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Some people have mailed me to ask how I got in contact with the Fair Trade groups etc so i thought I should explain it a bit here.

There is two main certification marks that govern fair trade. The first is the FLO mark on the left above, it oversees commodities such as coffee/tea/fruit and is the most widely recognised. The second is the WFTO mark which oversees the more complex fair trade manufacturing certification. Clothing/stationery/handicrafts any manufactured goods etc all come under this mark so it is the place to go for designers looking to create and manufacture designs and products.

I always wonder why it is the Fair Trade raw commodity mark is so widely recognised but the Fair Trade manufacturing mark isn't as well known. Mainly perhaps because the Fair Trade raw commodity mark products can sell themselves without much help from design (coffee, tea etc need nothing more than a packet) but fair trade manufactured products aren't as easy because they heavily rely on design. There are great companies such as People Tree that are doing their bit to show that its possible to do great designs in fair trade, but in general I think its clear that there still isn't enough great design. Why isn't it everywhere?  More than 50% of coffee sold in the UK is fair trade and still rapidly growing but in clothing it is less than one percent. If there were more it would be a huge force in poverty reduction and the main thing I see holding it back is design.

Having worked myself in advertising and commercial design for a long time I had become very disillusioned in the world and business of design, and I am very grateful to the people I have met in Fair Trade who have reminded me again what good design can be. There are some amazing traditional crafts and hand made objects that just cannot be produced industrially that lend themselves if designed nicely to really beautiful high-end design products. Textile designers in particular would be blown away. Not only that but I have met some pretty amazing and inspiring people. It has been a great opportunity for me to take some time to do something a bit different that is generated by myself rather than commissioned and it has led my design work into lots of new and unexpected directions.

For anyone who is thinking about getting involved they can go straight to the WFTO website here and contact producer groups all over the world by region/country or by product type. Literally anything you can think of (that can be non-industrially manufactured) can be made somewhere by some co-operative. You can also join them on facebook here 

If you have any other questions please leave a comment below.

 

bag prints...

and some soft toys.

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This is the first review of A Bit Lost in English.
Its from The Bookseller. Very exciting to see a review in English, I still havent seen an actual copy of the book yet myself as Im still in India! 'A Bit Lost' should be out properly in September.

The Bookseller- 18 June 2010 -Booksellers Choice
Chris Haughton's delightful picture book 'A Bit Lost' has a simlistic charm and natual voice which will be enjoyed by the youngest children. The traditional separation tale of a lost child finds wrong mummy- then eventually right mummy is lifted by unusual colours and quirky, humorous illustrations. The last page is a joy.

Publishers weekly- July 2010
By sticking to simple shapes and a bold palette, Haughton has created a debut that reads like a tattered old favorite. A single half-page shows Little Owl dozing off in his nest, then--once it’s turned--bouncing softly to the forest floor. The animals who find Little Owl are flat, stylized creatures in jewel colors, but their eyes convey a wealth of feeling. Squirrel peers at Little Owl, his paws clasped in concern, his neck stretched out quizzically. “My mommy is VERY BIG,” says Little Owl. “Yes! Yes! I know! I know!” says Squirrel. “Follow me.... Here she is. Here’s your mommy.” Squirrel points to an enormous teal bear, staring befuddled at readers. A few more cases of mistaken identity ensue before locating Little Owl’s mother (careful readers will have noticed her seeking out her progeny). With instinctive skill, Haughton uses spreads of the forest to establish atmosphere and set up jokes, then delivers punch lines with spot illustrations that zero in on the animals’ dopey but lovable expressions. A promising first outing. Ages 2–up.

I also got a nice post from the very nice handdrawnpixels.com

A Bit Lost is available in UK/IRE     >>> here
LIttle Owl Lost in the USA               >>> here
Ihan Hukassa in Finland (Suomi)    >>> here

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I 'm not entirely sure what it says. Really lovely pictures though. Thanks!!!!
The original post is here and another one here

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Some of the women employed at Mahaguthi are deaf or disabled. This is the sign you do when you take Monday off.....'Im outta here. Peace'

 

 

a few images from the classroom

this guy is having a really bad banana. not nice.

All the Ullu's! The Hindi word for 'owl' is 'ullu' which is also the word you use if you want to call someone stupid. Owls are thought of as stupid in India and Nepal, the opposite to how they are seen in the west. My owl is definitely a Nepali 'ullu' rather than a western owl. Actually I have become known as ullu-man in the Mahaguthi office (!).Thanks very much to Sumitra, Anita, Chandigarh and Uttara (also to Ono and Sunil who arent here)

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From their profits they also fund a school of 260...

...and an orphanage of 19 children

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The talk I gave in Dublin at the Offset series of talks has been put online.

I get a little bit better after the first few mins…. oh dear....

Thanks so much to everyone at OFFSET for putting on such a great event. Its probably the best series of design talks ive seen together anywhere.  It was an amazing honour to speak at it. Many of the other talks are now online. David Shrigley's one is really funny.

Chris Haughton - OFFSET 2009 from OFFSET on Vimeo

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I have just been working on some fair trade soft toys here in Nepal with ACP

We still have to iron out a few things ...probably going to shrink them in size a little... but hopefully they will be available in autumn 2011 from Peopletree

new nepali words of the day: 'bandha sukya' = 'monkey finished'

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