Responsive Penguin: How to be a Woman Research

Before even brainstorming some design ideas for this novel, I decided to look up and research a few things about the author Caitlin Moran and her book 'How to be a Woman' so that I could get a clearer idea of how to illustrate its contents.

I found out that Caitlin Moran is not just an author of books, but she is a columnist for The Times magazine, where she writes about feminism, lifestyle and other topics to motivate and inspire her readers. She writes really intellectually, and is quite humorous but it has to be taken with a pinch of salt. After reading some of articles on The Times website, including 'Let's Reclaim Women's Bodies' and 'The X Factor? I'm Over It!', I gained some insight into her writing style and perhaps how she would want her book to be illustrated. She is a bit eccentric and extremely funny, so hopefully I will be able to reflect this into my designs.

Caitlin also has over half a million followers on Twitter alone! Because Twitter is such a great platform to voice your opinion, Caitlin uses this to reach her large audience, to speak out about feminism as well as continue to motivate her fans. Therefore I am going to have to think about the amount of people these designs could possibly be reaching. It will be more than just book lovers who go to Waterstones or WHSmiths to browse books, it will half a million people who are fans of her to begin with, as well as the critics who will be assessing her success. 

Because Caitlin has published other books before, I had a look at how they have already been presented to see if there were any common themes. I would describe them as quirky and full of personality, so although I will be creating something new and fresh, I still want my designs to have their quirks. I don't think there is a constant pattern in terms of the illustrations for each cover, which is good because it gives me room to explore some more new ways to target the demographic, which is mostly female, but of course is a great read for men too, to gain some insight into the struggles and societal impacts of being a woman. 

After looking at some of the quotes from Caitlin Moran's book in general, with a focus on 'How to be a Woman, I decided to brainstorm what it means to be a woman. I ended up going off topic, and writing down quotes that I really liked, but I did do some relevant research as well. This was very useful for me because it allowed me to see the genre and topic of the book more clearly, and see the point of view Caitlin Moran writes from, before I even think of what to design. I thought about being a friend, a mother, to the roles women have in society and how there is still this stigma attached to the word feminism. I realised that women want what everyone else wants and there shouldn't even be questions like 'What is it to be a woman?', a woman is the same as a man, and is equal to everyone. I hope I can portray this in my book illustrations, but if anything I have a wider understanding of the books content especially since I do not own it, but I am definitely thinking of purchasing it.