School children make their mark with Solopress competition

Thousands of school children from around the UK will not need to worry about losing their place in their favourite book anymore following the success of our recent Make Your Mark competition.

We launched the competition in the run up to World Book Day. We invited children from infant and primary schools to design a bookmark based on their favourite book and to send us their artwork.

From all of the entries we received we drew out some lucky winners. We then selected one bookmark from each winning class to have their design professional printed by our team here at Solopress, one for every child in each class to receive.

“A brilliant way to encourage and foster children’s love for reading”

We received some amazing feedback from teachers on how the children in their classes found taking part in the activity.

Rizwanah Ramankhan from The New North Academy in Islington said: “The children definitely enjoyed taking part in the competition. They were able to reflect on book genres they are interested in and share them with their classmates which was really beneficial.

“It was also amazing as they were able to bring some of their favourite characters to life through drawing!”

Jerin Khanim from Olga Primary School in Tower Hamlets added: “The children were all eager to enter the competition and put a lot of effort and thought into their drafts and then final designs.

“The competition was a brilliant way to encourage children’s love for reading – something we push for in our school.”

The bookmarks were chosen by Matt Bruty, one of our designers here at Solopress and also the author/illustrator of the popular children’s book ‘The Book Mites & the Spider’.

In addition to being sent the printed bookmarks, each class also received five copies of Matt’s book to enjoy and further encourage their passion for reading.

“Beautifully intricate and subtle designs that showed real care and patience”

On judging the competition, Matt said: “Choosing the winners was a formidable task. There were so many excellent and varied entries, but I really enjoyed it. The effort that went into the designs was obvious and I ensured I approached the judging with the same enthusiasm.

“The innovation the children had shown really stood out to me. The shape of the bookmark offered a good challenge for them. This is something I know about from designing bookmarks and roller banners for our customers.

“I loved the designs that used the full shape of the bookmark to form the childrens’ favourite characters. As well as the bold and colourful illustrations there were some beautifully intricate and subtle designs that showed real patience. We also had purely typographic designs, a lot of humour and even a clever bit of collage.”

A huge range of different books from a wide selection of authors inspired the designs. Some of the most frequently used titles included ‘The Cat in the Hat’ by Dr. Seuss, ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ by Jeff Kinney and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl.

However, by far the most popular choice was the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. Here are just some of the fantastic designs we were sent in honour of everyone’s favourite wizard!