A Timeline Map: From Pencil to Print

Hi Everyone, I’m Jackie, one of two graphic designers having the privilege of working on The Gospel Project for Kids. Jeremy is the other designer and you will be meeting him soon.

Let me just say how much fun the process of creating this product has been. From the time we began brainstorming ideas for the logo, covers, timeline posters etc., the excitement kept building. We could not wait to see the first timeline poster come off the printing press. Seeing all of the posters hung on the wall here at LifeWay reinforced to The Gospel Project team, that this was a great tool in helping kids see the big picture of Jesus.  I have to say I am a little sad that the bulk of that work has been completed!

The process we went through to get to the final timeline posters was quite extensive. We first determined that we wanted the kids to feel as though they were traveling from location to location, so we created themes or “stops” along the way to help build on that idea. We did not want it to look or feel like any ordinary Biblical timeline that was out there. We had looked at many and they were all so . . . well . . . ok I’ll say it,— boring! We wanted it to be fun, visually exciting, and something that would help the kids remember how the story of Jesus unfolds chronologically.

Once we really started thinking about the big picture, we came up with the idea of all 12 posters being combined to make one big scene. It was going to be challenging for an illustrator, so the search began. Jeremy and I looked at hundreds of illustration styles. We already knew that we were going to use two different styles, one for the backgrounds and one for the Biblical art. We wanted the two styles to be different, creating some visual contrast.

The process of developing the background art is quite interesting. For each poster, the illustrator would create a loose sketch and send it in for approval. The team would then discuss any change we thought were needed. From there he made the changes then began the process by building the art in Photoshop right on top of his revised but still very loose sketches. A lot of the imagery was based on photography that has been highly manipulated and or digitally painted on to get to the final look. Of course not all that you see is photography based. There is a sprinkling of traditional painting (digital painting, these days) throughout each one.

That’s it in a nutshell. Click on the image below to see the sketch and final poster side-by-side!

Posted by jjones