Hasta La Ideas

Scottish charity MUMs (Malawi Underprivileged Mothers) commissioned illustrator Malika Favre to illustrate a children’s book entitled When The Rains Come, a charming initiative to raise awareness of problems faced by young mothers in Malawi while also raising money to help them…

The book tells the story of three children who have to be looked after by their grandmother, whilst also embedding a story within the story: a folk tale from Malawi about different animals working together and listening to the wisdom of even the lowliest creature to solve problems.

“In order to bring the book to life, I worked very closely with the author, Tom Pow and the charity founder, Linda McDonald,” says Favre of the project.

“The real challenge,” she continues, “was to communicate the reality of the situation for Malawi children while retaining and celebrating the joy of Malawi culture. We didn’t want to create a grim assesment of life in Malawi but rather raise awarness about the current situation in a positive way.”

Favre describes the creative process as organic and collaborative: “Tom allowed the story to evolve alongside the illustrations and for the narrative and illustrations to feed one another,” she says.

“My approach was very instinctive and quite different from my usual creative process,” she continues. “This project was not about paring things down but about bringing patterns, animals and colours to life in a joyful and almost chaotic way.”

“I wanted to have loads of hidden details on each page and take owneship of the story itself by adding my own stories to it. I based my illustrations on Linda’s photographs of Malawi in order to stay as close as possible to reality.”

When The Rains Come (Birlinn, £6.99) is out now and available online here.

Find out more about MUMs at mumsrecipes.org and see more of Favre’s work at malikafavre.com.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
In our October print issue we have a major feature on the rise of Riso printing, celebrate the art of signwriting, examine the credentials of ‘Goodvertising’ and look back at the birth of D&AD. Rebecca Lynch reviews the Book of Books, a survey of 500 years of book design, Jeremy Leslie explains how the daily London 2012 magazine delivered all the news and stories of the Games and Michael Evamy explores website emblemetric.com, offering “data-driven insights into logo design”. In addition to the issue this month, subscribers will receive a special 36-page supplement sponsored by Tag celebrating D&AD’s 50th with details of all those honoured with Lifetime Achievement awards plus pieces on this year’s Black Pencil and President’s Award-winners Derek Birdsall and Dan Wieden. And subscribers also receive Monograph which this month features Rian Hughes’ photographs of the unique lettering and illustration styles of British fairgrounds

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.