You can’t fail to have noticed that today sees the start of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. As we all get ready to cheer on an unknown country, Gavin is organising our emc sweepstake, thousands of children (and probably grown ups too) are preparing for the event with The Official 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil books from Carlton Books. And we are very proud to have designed them!

Gavin, one of our Design Managers and our biggest football fan, was assigned the project last summer and we’ve kept it under wraps since then. Even though we have been incredibly excited about it! He said:

As soon as I heard we would be working on these books I made sure I was going to be involved in the production of these. I love the World Cup and ever since I was a young lad I’ve collected books and sticker albums, right back to Mexico 86 (I’m showing my age now!) and had dreams of England winning. Who knows, maybe this will be the year…?

The great thing about these books was applying as much of the World Cup branding as we could, taking a good look at the guidelines provided, to give us a clear idea of an approach, it was pretty much a blank canvas. Just as big a challenge was the very tight schedules, a few late nights were required but the final results were well worth the hard work.

The Official 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Kids’ Handbook

This handbook is a great resource for young children looking to swat up on Brazil and all the football knowledge they need to survive the next few weeks. It has a great mix of very colourful spreads, with loads of great photos, facts presented in a very fun and vibrant way and plenty of activities, and of course lots of interaction with mascot Fuleco. There are loads of stickers throughout the book which we designed as well as the overall page layouts. There was a lot of photoshop work done too to make some of the images really pop out of the page. And a great pull out fill-in chart so you can keep track of who’s playing who.

The Official 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil colouring book and The Official 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil activity book

As well as the handbook we also designed the official colouring and activity books. Bursting with even more fun-filled football related trivia and activities these books were great to design. With over 150 intricately designed stickers and complex spot the difference puzzles these books are much complicated than you might think to design.

You can buy the handbook from most bookstores or Carlton’s website here, where there are also loads of other great sporting books.

Enjoy the World Cup everyone, come on England!