Dreamland Mood Boards

When first approaching this project, I decided to do the book Charlotte's Web, as it was a fun favourite when I was younger and I thought it was appropriate for the target audience of age 9 to 11.

When doing visual research for the dreamland, I wanted to incorporate the idea of having webs everywhere and the effect of raindrops on a web (to appear reminiscent of fairy lights). I thought that it could be used as a strong link between the bedroom of the child and the dreamland. Another effect I loved was the colours in the sky at sunset, as it reminded me of the big wide skies of farmlands in the US (the setting of Charlotte's Web). I really wanted to capture these oranges, yellows, reds and purples in a specific colour palette to help bring about a clear differentiation between dream and reality.

Originally, I was thinking about the idea of having my main character (Hayley aged 10) live in a 1970s council estate in London and have the dreamland as an overgrown version of her home with the clear palette and webs everywhere as well as aspects of farmlands incorporated in urban life. However, when asking discussing my ideas in a group crit it became know to me that the carnival aspect Charlotte's web was actually something that a lot of people found really memorable about the book so I decided to go down the more carnival route for dreamland, but still keeping with the colour palette and the kind of sparkly fairy lights.

When trying to develop ideas for an Hayley's room, I wanted to make sure that it did not appear over furnished dressed with expensive props in order to reflect her circumstances. I wanted her to be from a low income family so having flamboyant furniture or anything like that would not reflect this. However, this does not mean I want the room to look sparse. I decided she should have aspects of laundry placed in her room due to lack of storage, storage boxes containing toys rather then furniture and lastly having all the furniture slightly different styles rather than being in sets.

Another aspect that I really felt would be good was having a high high bed so that she could have a desk underneath there and some storage space. I also want to really showcase her creativity. I wanted there to be a blanket forts where the fairy lights could be to linking the dreamscape I also really wanted a lava lamp because I thought that could be a good way to link between dreamland and reality as well as artwork all over the walls with some referring to sunsets to once again interlink. Lastly I wanted to have some aspects of pigs in the room because Charlotte's Web is about a pig so I thought to furnish the room with a flying pig piggy bank and also a soft toy pig could be seen as another link from story to the dream.

All in all, I wanted her room not to look polished but organic and homely.