{"id":921,"date":"2025-12-05T19:48:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/?p=921"},"modified":"2025-12-05T19:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:50:20","slug":"students-investigate-eye-catching-color-in-early-childrens-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/gallery\/2025\/12\/05\/students-investigate-eye-catching-color-in-early-childrens-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Students investigate: eye-catching color in early children’s books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This series features the work and research of UI students. The following was written by Cecil Campbell, exhibition and engagement student lead for the\u202f<\/em><\/strong>Main Library Gallery<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of hallmarks that we look for when identifying children\u2019s media: big pictures, bold and eye-catching colors, large fonts. Children’s books especially are known for these traits, and have been since the 19th century, when they first became their own market and genre. Much like kid\u2019s television shows today, stories often included a moral, or lesson, that extolled virtues like selflessness, patience, and kindness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orbis Pictus <\/em>by Johannes Amos Comenius was published in 1658. As one of the first instructional picture books for children, Comenius\u2019s approach leaned heavily on visual learning and the use of instructional pictures and drawings. The goal was to teach learning comprehension through association: pairing words with images by placing them next to each other, until reading the given word independently recalled the corresponding image. Scholar Andrea Korda, in their journal article <\/em>\u201cThinking with Pictures: Memory, Imagination, and Colour Illustration in Victorian Teaching and Learning,\u201d writes that pictures were essential to Comenius\u2019s methods not only because of their familiarity as iconic representations, but also because, according to Comenius, \u201cchildren (even from their infancy almost) are delighted with pictures.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An important and equally iconic aspect of early children\u2019s books was the chromolithograph. The process of the chromolithograph involved drawing a picture using an oil or grease-based ink and transferring that image to stone or metal plates and then printing over that image multiple times using differently colored versions of the same image. When put together fully, the colors of the different layers would produce a fully colored and detailed image that evoked the feeling of an oil painting, but at a fraction of the cost. Depending on how much detail a chromolithographer wanted in their picture, they might use anywhere from as little as eight plates to as many as forty to complete an image. Though used many times in children\u2019s books, the chromolithograph was also used in collectible trading cards, Christmas cards, and calendars.   <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"An\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
A Party of Six: A Movable Toybook<\/em>, by Lothar Meggendorfer. London: H. Grevel & Co, 1890. x-Collection [FOLIO PT2625. E234 P37 1890], Special Collections and Archives, University of Iowa Libraries.<\/figcaption>
\n