The Simon Snow Coloring Book: A Fan Project
When the world shut down in 2020, I kept trying to come up with ways to bring people together.
As someone whose middle school career was defined by fan culture, I turned to the community built around the books Carry On and Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell. These communities helped me feel connected to the outside world, and I wanted to find a way to bring us closer together.
Promotional materials for the coloring book, illustrated and put together by myself.
And so the Simon Snow Coloring Book was born!
I started to make posts asking artists to sign up to contribute artwork, starting an extensive social media campaign over Instagram and Tumblr
59 artists signed up to participate, contributing 1-2 artworks. I put together a discord server, and started getting to work creating my own drawings and putting together the book. Additionally, I set up a GoFundMe page for COVID-19 relief organizations to help contribute to the global crisis.
Simon Snow Coloring Book Cover Page, illustration by me, calligraphy by @penapoly on instagram and tumblr
After a lot of hard work, the project finally debuted on June 6th, 2020.
With the help of the artists on the campaign, I was able to put together a cohesive document with everyone’s illustrations, their artist biographies, and some reference information about COVID-19. I couldn’t have completed the project without their help, and I learned a lot about teamwork and management through the completion of this project.
Below, you will find all the pages I had a hand in making, from the illustrations I made, to the introduction I wrote to make this a cohesive booklet.
Overall, the coloring book was a huge success.
All kinds of people interacted with our posts, and many colored the images the artists worked so hard on. I succeeded in bringing together both an artistic community, and the fans, giving everyone something to do during quarantine. Additionally, our fundraiser raised over $1,000 towards COVID-19 relief!
When everything was put together, I even colored my own illustration! This was the final result.
Even better, everything is still available online! Just look up @simonsnowcoloringbook on Instagram and Tumblr, or use the hashtag:
