April 12, 2017

BEFORE & AFTER

Forget the "before" and "after" scenarios you've seen in books, because I guarantee you the situations we see in Jean Jullien's Before & After are funnier, more colorful, and waaaaay more satisfying.



Like his previous board book This Is Not a Book, Jullien veers away from the obvious in Before & After and pushes the limits of imagination and creativity. The book is based on two words: "before" and "after," which is progressed by the turn of a page (ie "before" gets its own spread and "after" gets its own spread. The below images are two different spreads!). We go from uncooked spaghetti to a full meal, a dirty cat to a clean cat, and we even see even a giant fold-out page that shows before, after, and during a roller coaster ride. The very nature of the book -- essentially the same two words used over and over again -- allows Jullien to frame an entire narrative in just two illustrations. We see a story progress from beginning to end, and there's even a story in what reader's don't see.



The illustrations are brush and ink that have been painted digitally, so they look crisp but still maintain a hand-drawn look. They're vibrant, full of color, and radiate humor as they tell the entire story of what happens between "before" and "after."



Before & After published from Phaidon last month!

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