Rob Ball lays out a vision of the future for Lonely Planet Kids.

Rob Ball has lent his flair for sci-fi illustration to Lonely Planet Kids new book Future Worlds; a pop-up book for kids describing what may lay ahead in the future. Working with writer Anna Claybourne and expert pop-up book designer Andy Mansfield, Future Worlds is an incredible showcase of Rob’s futuristic designs and vision of a brightly coloured, robot filled future.

“It’s probably the most complex work I’ve ever produced. Everything had to be designed from scratch – buildings, clothes, hairstyles, robot dogs.Then each image had to work around the specific placement of captions, and objects had to be placed in the various scenarios in predetermined places. Then I had to make sure that all text sat on clear space, and the colours weren’t too dark for legibility reasons. Then it was a case of achieving believable perspective and a sense of three-dimensions within reason. Lastly I tried to make sure there was variety through the book through different lighting conditions/different times of day and having some pages zoomed in whilst others were detailed panoramas.

Planning was essential on this project, with Rob developing his sketches on large sheets of A2 layout paper, before moving to finals in Illustrator and Photoshop, “The best thing was coming up with funky objects and robots and imagining what fashion might look like in the future, I would love to more of that kind of speculative illustration!”

Future Worlds is available now via Lonely Planet Kids.