【Hundred Ways Editor's Note】There are many books on the Forbidden City on the market, and how to make this topic creative is a problem that every publishing institution and publishing house thinks about. For Fun Fun, the biggest advantage is the ability to be original and novel book forms. The Le Fun team gave full play to its own advantages and launched the "Secret Forbidden City Series (Set of 4 Volumes)", which became another blockbuster work in the Secret Turning Book Series. From the birth of the topic to the final publication of the book, the planning editor Guo Xiaoyu recorded the whole process, and also let the reader understand that behind the excellent works, every participant pursues a perfect and ultimate book-making attitude.
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"Unveiling the Forbidden City Series (Set of 4 Volumes)"
Publisher: Future Press
Author: Wang Zhilin Zheng Yuhan He Jiayi Zheng Ningna
Publication date: March 2022
With a history of more than 600 years, the Forbidden City is a well-deserved representative ip of traditional Chinese culture. The complementarity of creative design and cultural heritage has made the "Forbidden City fever" continue to heat up. In the children's publishing industry, each publishing unit presents the appearance and connotation of the Forbidden City with wonderful pictures or knowledge popularization.
Although the children's books on the theme of the Forbidden City are varied, the interactive fun of the main products has once again opened up another way to interpret "Kung Fu on Paper", and its newly launched "Unveiling the Forbidden City" series of four books, each book set nearly 80 pages, vividly staged a "traditional culture lesson in the Forbidden City" for young readers in the hands of the hands.
The editors and designers involved in the "Unveiling the Forbidden City" project
In the face of the fiery release of this so-called "historical and humanistic treasure book with children to travel through the Forbidden City", planning editor Guo Xiaoyu said in the editor's note that the book is an answer sheet that is two years late, this topic has experienced how "can't do it" twists and turns, this popular science flip book is how to entertain and teach the legendary story of the six hundred years of the Forbidden City, which will find the answer between her words.
Continuing to write the advantages of ace products,
Presenting a "city" with temperature
In the spring of 2019, Guo Xiaoyu at that time became interested in the "Forbidden City" when he was planning a traditional cultural direction, thinking that the Forbidden City was about to usher in its 600th birthday the following year (2020), which was a good time that no matter which editor did not want to miss.
Returning to reality, the birth of a topic is by no means the result of hot heads, and careful analysis of knowing oneself and knowing the other is a solid foundation for steady progress.
Originality and novel book forms have always been the biggest strength of Fun Fun. "If we tell the children about the excellent and diverse cultural charm of the mainland and the 'Reveal series', our ace product of fun, it is not a beautiful thing." The Secret Flip Book Series is an evergreen product line with double harvests of word-of-mouth and sales, and its all-encompassing rich content not only involves hard science and subject knowledge, but also shows the charm of traditional Chinese culture as a foothold. This is to say that the "Reveal the Secret of Huaxia" series favored by young readers and parents, although only two series have been launched, it has triggered a "national wind fever", of which the "Revealed Four Masterpieces" has achieved good results in monthly sales of more than 5,000 sets, which is enough to prove that parents and young readers recognize it. With the foundation of successful experience, Guo Xiaoyu's confidence was doubled, and an "immature and seemingly reliable" planning plan came into being.
At that time, its name was "Our Forbidden City."
While clarifying their own advantages, they must also have a clear understanding of the books on the market. In order to welcome the second year's "Six Hundred Years of the Forbidden City", there are gradually more related books on the market, and people's attention to the Forbidden City is also rising. The other side of the variety of books is that for consumers, the selection of books has become a problem of picking flowers. How to make fun of his own characteristics and avoid homogenization has become the first point of consideration in front of Guo Xiaoyu.
At this time, she remembered the documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City", where cultural relics restoration experts touched the objects made and used by their ancestors through a hundred years, and the craftsman spirit of doing their best to repair and restore them made Guo Xiaoyu admired. She wrote: In fact, people are trying to maintain not only cultural relics and buildings themselves, but also the homes that have lived for generations, and even more a living history spanning six hundred years.
Go to collect the wind and feel the real Forbidden City with your eyes and hands
The core concept of the "Unveiling the Forbidden City" series has emerged in Guo Xiaoyu's mind - to let children understand that the Forbidden City is not living in the history of the past, nor is it a museum that is out of reach, it is around, and it has been telling us the story of its past in silence.
A new perspective on the culture of the Forbidden City,
Extensive involvement in the selection of good knowledge levels
History, architecture, cultural relics, etiquette, costumes, institutions, court culture, art... The knowledge involved in the "Unveiling the Forbidden City" series covers nearly ten fields, and it is possible to see all aspects of the 600-year-old Forbidden City in one go. However, how to choose the main line connecting the people and things of the Forbidden City? In this regard, Guo Xiaoyu gave up starting from the common perspective of timeline, architecture or characters, but chose to interpret the grandeur of the Forbidden City through four books and four perspectives from small to large.
The theme of the four books ranges from "an ordinary day for the people of the Ancient Forbidden City", to "celebrating festivals and attending ceremonies in the Forbidden City", to "experiencing the four seasons of the year in the Forbidden City", and finally to "Six Hundred Years", which is the most macroscopic and difficult theme to talk about. Such an ever-expanding perspective, through the extension from point to line and from line to surface, makes it easier for young readers to understand a forbidden city with temperature and "grounded gas".
In addition, the creative team of Le Fun also planted an "Easter egg" here, that is, there is a clever complementary relationship between these four themes. For example, the content of "A Day in the Secret forbidden City" will be very specific and fragmented, it shows not only the royals, but also the daily life of ordinary people such as eunuchs, palace women, courtiers, etc., hoping that this presentation can be closer to the lives of young readers, so the book also includes sub-themes of eating, sleeping, attending classes, playing, working and so on. For example, "Unveiling the Four Seasons of the Forbidden City" is more inclined to seasonal content such as festivals, customs, costumes and diets, while "Unveiling the Festivals of the Forbidden City" is more about etiquette, system and other knowledge that highlights the royal style. As for "Revealing the Past and Present Life of the Forbidden City", as its name condenses the thickness of time, but after all, it is too difficult to condense 600 years of history in just eight pages, so this book selects the most representative eight time points/paragraphs, focusing on ancient and modern history, cultural relics, ancient and modern evolution and other levels. In this way, it not only solves the problem of not being able to put such a large number of themes of the Forbidden City into a book, but also increases the richness and expands the space for interesting display with four themes with different perspectives and different emphases.
"A Day in the Secret forbidden City" is a degree of fun that can be felt just by looking at the title, and there are many "careful machines" hidden in the illustrations.
"Unveiling the Festivals of the Forbidden City" and "Revealing the Four Seasons of the Forbidden City" are two different styles
Each page of "Revealing the Past and Present Lives of the Forbidden City" corresponds to different historical stages
The knowledge system involved behind the long history of the Forbidden City is very complex, not only the well-known history, architecture, court culture, cultural relics, etc., but also the unexpected aspects of clothing, etiquette system, politics, art, folklore, science and technology. What kind of knowledge points will be included in this set of books? Guo Xiaoyu wrote: Showing the style of the Forbidden City in a limited number of pages is an important criterion for selecting knowledge points.
(Left) Throwing pots: ancient ceremonial cultural activities to expand children's knowledge
Stone Drum: The "heaviest" national treasure in the southward migration of cultural relics from the Forbidden City stimulates children's interest in history
Court music and dance, sports and leisure activities:
Different historical stages have different social environments, which have a great influence on the form of art display and enhance children's perception of art and sociology
(Left) Festival Customs: Learn about the different elaborations and activities of each traditional festival, some of which have even been passed down to this day
(Right photo) Food culture: All kinds of cuisines introduced by the Forbidden City are actually very exquisite
In fact, this is also a huge challenge for the creative team: only with a rich accumulation and extensive involvement can we filter out the information that is suitable for children. Since then, watching documentaries, visiting official websites, reading literature, buying books and periodicals has become a "common thing" for team members regardless of commuting time, and even "surfing the Internet" during breaks is always paying attention to collecting materials.
Some commonly used reference books and books on the same topic
In the first version of the outline, the selection of knowledge points is not only wide-ranging, but also interesting
Scene design kicks the Forbidden City stereotype,
"Perfectionism" is not afraid to revise it over and over again
The characteristics of flipping through the book are based on pictures, supplemented by text, and the combination of exquisite pictures and turning pages allows young readers to experience the joy of discovering knowledge in the hands-on disclosure. The full set of books totals more than 320 pages and more than 700 knowledge points, and children will also enjoy the wonderful and legendary Forbidden City in the happy reading of hand-brain interaction. For the creative team, the release of the "Unveiling the Forbidden City" series is like a "monster upgrade" to find problems and solve problems, and how to design the scenes on each page has become another major problem encountered by the creative team.
Guo Xiaoyu introduced that the initial idea was to try to select different palaces and areas for each page to show, to avoid repeated occurrences in one place, and to change the size of the Forbidden City, readers can only think of the stereotype of "Golden Ruan Hall" and "central axis". But in actual creation, I found that the difficulties were far greater than imagined. Often it is difficult to present the appropriate content in the scene, or with the right picture, it is impossible to find the knowledge that matches the theme. Therefore, from the initial outline to the final perfect presentation, it is perfectly normal to span several months.
Originally planned as envisioned
It is no exaggeration to say that almost every page has undergone the steps of outline overturning, manuscript overhaul, and re-sorting of knowledge points, and has reached the stage of screen design and illustration, and it is the continuous update and revision of one edition after another. It can be said that it is to fully reflect the 'perfectionism' attribute of the music fun editors. ”
The file name bears witness to the revision of each page of the manuscript
Talking about the book's appearance, that is, the cover, she said that there is actually a secret care about the illustration. The "Unveiling the Forbidden City" series does not adopt the same illustration style or directly cooperate with the same illustrator as the regular series of books, but matches the theme and temperament of each book, boldly adopting four different styles, allowing the illustrator and the content to have a wonderful chemical reaction. "We hope that these little 'hearts' buried in the book can bring some 'new ideas' to every reader."
(Top left) Day: Childlike, meticulous (top right) Four seasons: bright colors
(Bottom left) Festivals: Quaint, Atmospheric (Bottom right) Past and Present Lives: Light Retro, Sense of History
Keep up with the research results to ensure that the content is accurate,
There is bitterness and happiness that eventually becomes a good book
In addition to the attractive picture of children's popular science books, of course, they must also examine the accuracy of each knowledge point. In the creation, in order to restore the real history as much as possible, the creative team strives to have every detail to be based on and accurate, sometimes in order to verify a knowledge point, the editors will look for "clues" in the overwhelming literature, and the cultural relics and ancient painting photos are also authoritative first-hand information, and le fun is specially invited to the relevant scholars of the Forbidden City to review the content of this book.
It is based on the scene of "Mulan Hunting" drawn by "Hongli Guanma Technique Chart Axis", "Gaozong Hunting Map", and "Hongli Shooting Hunting Chart Axis"
According to the literature, various buildings were drawn at the longevity festival
Guo Xiaoyu also revealed the "pits" that are often encountered in creation, that is, the knowledge that is still under research. Due to the continuous updating of the research results, many of the materials consulted by the creative team were understood by the guidance of experts that some of them were "expired ingredients". In this way, the contents of the book are constantly revised and updated to ensure that they are more authentic and accurate.
The first edition of "A Day in the Secret of the Forbidden City" and suggestions for revision by experts
The most head-catching is the page in "Revealing the Past and Present Lives of the Forbidden City" that attempts to recreate the appearance of the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty. The idea is always good, but when it comes to doing it, editors find that there is only a lot of information that can be found. When I searched through the materials and literature and finished the illustration, I was given a dense opinion by the experts. Originally, the industry has been in continuous research on the history of Ming Palace architecture, and there are many inconclusive contents, which can only be revised according to academic research that has been conclusive.
Suggestions for the revision of the first edition of "Revealing the Past and Present Lives of the Forbidden City"
The mental process of "questioning, seeking verification, judging and modifying" runs through almost every day and night, "three years of grinding a sword", after overturning, reshaping, and polishing the work to finally come out. Guo Xiaoyu admitted in the editor's note that in fact, many times in the process, he wanted to give up, "it is too difficult to do, can not do it" This kind of idea may have been shared by everyone. But perhaps it is the mentality of not accepting defeat and not being willing to do so, so that the creative team has persevered against all odds, and no matter how many difficulties there are, they are also happy in it.
In the more than two years since the book was created, the creative team has also undergone tremendous changes. Since the dozen or so members of the project are from different departments of Fun Fun, each person is responsible for the books in his or her own department, while also expending a lot of energy and effort on this set of books. Guo Xiaoyu wrote: What makes us even more unbelievable is that four colleagues and an illustrator involved in the project have been upgraded to become mothers! From time to time, we jokingly said that "the babies are out, the books are not out yet."
Editors encourage each other on a daily basis
At the end of the editor's note, she also wrote: Two years have passed since the super topic of "six hundred years of the Forbidden City", and some people have said: "Is this book still out?" "The gusts of wind have passed." ...... But for us, good food is not afraid of late, and good books are not afraid. The charm and topic of the Forbidden City should not only focus on a certain year, it stands in the long river of history, through time, always beautiful and fresh. And all the interpretations and emotional expressions of le fun for the Forbidden City are condensed in this two-year late examination paper, and I hope that readers of all sizes will review it happily!
(This article is based on guo Xiaoyu's editorial handwriting titled "Sorry, This is a two-year late answer sheet", and I would like to express my gratitude.) ）
Author: Wang Ran
Edit: Daozhi
Final: Ling Jia