Fanciful Mr. Fox

One truth about children’s and YA literature is that it’s often enjoyed as much by adults as much as by young readers. Grown-ups love the whimsy, earnestness, and humor that kids love as well. But while we like the same stories, kids and adults often like different things, visually. Kids like bright color and shapes. Adults like subtlety and aesthetics. This creates an interesting dilemma for designers. How do you market a book that people will want to buy both for their children and for themselves? How do you design a book that will catch the eye of childless adults and preteens equally?

Often, this leads to really amazing, creative design.

Sometimes, its leads to terrifying Frankendesigns.

Oh God! Mutant nerd! Don't let it near me!! Ahh!

The same dilemma happens with kid’s movie marketing, especially when it’s based on a book.

The many book-based movies coming out now are showcasing their varied successes and failures.

Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” has hit the bullseye with design. The posters are interesting, the trailer’s gorgeous, and even this pop-up shop/marketing scheme in Space 15 Twenty is dazzling. Check out the whole shop at KitsuneNoir.

The new posters for “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, on the other hand… well, they seem to fall victim to that same problem of kidlit design: To design for kids or for adults?

Take a look (more are over at Gordon and the Whale)

But I haven’t lost hope. I love everything Wes Anderson’s done, and I’m sure this won’t be an exception. How do I know?

Things are Getting “Wild”

The trailer for Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are came out last week, and boy are people chatty about it.  I particularly like this post from Richard Brody at the New Yorker.

All that I’m going to add to this discussion is that the movie looks beautiful, but I’m still fairly certain it will ruin the book. I mean, c’mon, 2-hour movie from a 30-page book? There’s got to be some ruin added in there somewhere. But a 2-minute trailer of the same book? Overwrought gold.

Here’s it is:

Also, the shot at 0:38 reminds me a lot of Ray Cruz’s illustrations for Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Maybe it’s the colors?

In other kids-book-to-movie news, here’s the recently released poster for the upcoming Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs adaptation.

Some kids books turn out wonderful when they’re adapted (e.g. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), but I have a feeling this one’s going the route of Horton Hears a Who — not terrible, but just wrong enough to make you wish it hadn’t been made.