For 2.5 stars this week, I completed the Mashedup Children’s Book assignment.  When I first started, I didn’t quite know where to start.

Mashup a children’s book based on another cultural artifact. For example, framing Dr. Who as a children’s book in the aesthetic of a Dr. Seuss’s work.

From the example given, I knew that I wanted to play off of the Dr. Seuss theme. I started out by searching for Dr. Seuss books and thinking about which one would be a nice play-on-words. My original idea was using “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” and maybe mixing it with power rangers, but that would be a mouthful to say, especially for a children’s book… I mean think about it, what adult would want to read “One Power Ranger, Two Power Ranger, Red Power Ranger, Blue Power Ranger” to a kid?? I’d need to stop for a drink of water after every page!

I finally found the book titled “Are You My Mother?” and immediately had a brilliant idea of what to do.. Change it to father instead of mother, and what have you??

I used Photoshop to create this cover, and although it is not in the theme of Dr. Suess, it still is a decent cover! I found the images of the characters in an image search, and then added the text and the gradient.  I chose to have Luke on the darker background and Darth on the lighter to juxtapose their roles in the films.  The text color reflects their actual sides in the films, and Luke’s name matches his light saber color! I couldn’t decide on the angle to have the gradient. The angle I ended up using reflects the divide between the two characters and their placement in this image.  The other option was to have it from corner to corner.  Using the angle I did also makes the cover less symmetrical, which I think adds to the aesthetic. Although I have never seen any of the Star Wars movies, I still think this would make for a comical children’s book..