What happens when your work touches your deepest wounds? This is the question posed by Dr. Trudy Meehan the author of ‘The Way Home’ – a beautifully illustrated tale that gently helps children make sense of the complicated feelings that follow a deep loss. We worked with Trudy to create a book aimed at helping start such conversations.
– David Murphy
I count myself lucky that I haven’t experienced the loss of a loved one by their own hand. I do, unfortunately, know too many people and families who have. As an adult, I can use my life experience to try and rationalise such seismic events—if it’s even possible to do so in these circumstances—but where do you begin the conversation of explaining the *why* of such a loss to a child?
This was the basis of the book by Dr. Trudy Meehan, Clinical Psychologist, and where my conversation with her started as we began planning the design of her book. To date, she had worked with the illustrator Fergal O’Connor to produce illustrations telling the story of an astronaut who runs into difficulty while in space, finds himself utterly alone, loses hope of being rescued, and decides to cut his lifeline.
Trudy had the story written, and Fergal’s wonderful illustrations were ready to use, needing only minor adjustments when required.
I started planning the design by first researching the books read by 6–12 year olds, which our book would be aimed at. I looked at the size, shape, weight, types of paper stock, and print finishing used to further my discussions with Trudy.
Once we had decided on a size (215 × 215 mm), I explained my ideas for the cover and pages, and what type of paper stock we should use. I was looking for an uncoated, natural paper that had a nice tactility to it and would serve the illustrations well. The paper would also need to be capable of handling the treatments I wanted to apply to the covers.
The front cover has the book title, the astronaut, and author/illustrator credits on it, and I wanted to accentuate the title and astronaut so they stood out. My plan was to emboss the astronaut’s shape and apply a clear foil to certain elements of his suit—such as his visor and body equipment—to make them stand out against the matte surface of the cover. The same clear foil was to be applied to the title as well and at the eleventh hour I added foil to the domes of a spacecraft on the back cover.
Working with the printer City Print, Cork—who were fantastic throughout the project—we printed samples on different papers until we found what we were happy with.
The finished book is litho-printed, full colour throughout, on Arena (Fedrigoni Papers):
* 350 gsm covers with blind emboss and clear foil
* 140 gsm pages
* Perfect bound
We have also designed digital versions of the book that are available for reading.
Trudy’s story in The Way Home childrens book invites connection, conversation, and healing, and you can find out more here:
View her TEDx Talk – HERE
Get a copy on Shopify – HERE
View the open access via the RCSI Library Repository – HERE