Alana, why travel guides for kids?
The idea arose from my personal experience with travel. My father worked for Pacific Southwest Airlines, which allowed my family to travel often. Some of my earliest memories are of touring the world: making friends with other children at the beach on the Cayman Islands, running through the children’s outdoor fountain one summer in Amsterdam, and trying my best to make the guards at Buckingham Palace crack a smile. My parents did a great job engaging me in my surroundings, and I’m convinced that it made those memories stick. I think this fed my curiosity about uncharted territory and inspired me to explore as much as possible when I was old enough to do so on my own. Since then I’ve traveled all over the world.
What made you decide to print the guides for the public?
As I perused bookstores and looked at the myriad travel guides available to adults, I noticed the lack of travel books directed at children. When I did see children’s books related to travel, they were intended to keep children busy with activities that diverted their attention from their surroundings, instead of directing their fresh eyes onto what was new around them. I felt like another book would only appeal to one type of learning style, and as a kid that just was never enough to engage me. So for my graduate thesis project, I decided to design a more playful, interactive kit with elements that would appeal to several different learning styles. I didn’t plan to make the guides available to the public, but I ended up loving this project so much that I couldn’t let it go after graduation.
What’s in the ZigZag Guides?
Each guide is a three-part kit that includes a deck of 20 city cards, a map and a folder to hold a day’s worth of cards. In researching what would work best in the kit, I met with dozens of children, parents and teachers to get feedback on prototypes and content. I wanted to be sure that the guides helped kids get excited about traveling with the family, encouraged them to learn about a culture unfamiliar to them, and provoked them to use their imagination while exploring. One of the best things about this project is it’s not available in digital form. [Check out the video below to see a few prototype guides in action.]
In this digital age, you’re not designing an app?
In my research, parents told me they want to disconnect while on vacation — to spend time with the family, not with their technology. This made me decide not to create a digital model.
Why did you choose to post your project to Kickstarter?
I brought an issue of WIRED magazine with me during my most recent trip to Italy, and one of the articles was about some of the successful projects funded through Kickstarter. It sounded like the perfect opportunity for my project, so I promised myself that I would post the ZigZag City Guides to Kickstarter after completing my degree.
Alana Zawojski graduated this spring with an MFA in Graphic Design from the Academy of Art University. She has until Thursday, Dec. 29, to get pledges for the $6500 it will cost to print the first round of ZigZag City Guides for Rome. For a $35 pledge, contributors receive a printed ZigZag City Guide to Rome.
