Questions to Europe by Paula Riek

Nine selected book projects from the first Slanted × Kickstarter Mentoring & Publishing Program are now live and ready to be funded. We are happy to present you the individual projects in the upcoming days and weeks and hope you’ll support one, two, or all of them. ;)

In the project Questions to Europe, Design student Paula Riek introduces children aged 6 and over to Europe and the EU in a colourful book printed on a risograph. It consists of 12 questions about Europe and is supposed to give the reader an opportunity to participate in the idea of the European Union at a very early age.

Paula Riek, is a 23-years-old graphic design student based in Würzburg, Germany, with an emphasis on illustration and graphic design. In her illustrations she likes to experiment with shapes and colors.

We asked Paula a few questions about her project:

Your project was selected from nearly 100 submissions to be part of the Slanted × Kickstarter mentoring & publishing program. What did you learn, what helped you the most?
I have learned a lot about calculation and project management because I didn’t have contact with these things in my studies so far. It was a great experience to work together with professionals from Slanted and Kickstarter, but it was also very helpful to get so much support from my family and friends.

How did this project come about?
My illustration professor André Rösler offered a course where we could work on a self chosen topic. I have been interested in Europe and the European Union for a long time. For the illustration class I started to read a lot about EU politics and functions. It’s an incredibly complex topic so it was really difficult to find a suitable visual language for it and to bring it to al level suitable for kids. Although I wanted to educate children about Europe I found it important to give the illustrations a joyful look, because the way the EU communicates is often very stiff and cold.

Why do you think it is important to communicate the values of Europe to the younger generation?
Children are the future and I hope that they will handle some things in a better way. There are many great developments but also problems in Europe right now and I think we have to find a communication space where we can discuss these topics. My book is an invitation to start this conversation at a very early age.

Why should our readers support your project? How do you hope to continue with it?
The European Union is threatened these days. I think some national movements like the Brexit do also come from a lack of communication of the values of the EU. There is no children’s book about Europe available right now. But I think that it’s an important theme—also for children. For the future I would love to make more editions in further languages so that many children can participate in this topic.

Thanks a lot for the insides and we keep our fingers crossed that your project will be financed!