AnotherDesignBlog.

A World of Miffy & Dick Bruna

"Each book first begins with a little idea"
I've been meaning to post a homage to one of my graphic design heroes, Dick Bruna, for some time - so here it is. There's so much material out there I thought I'd collate lots of links, quotations and illustrations on the man, Miffy and his other illustrative creations to give a fuller picture of him and his work...enjoy!!

Miffy in numbers

118 Miffy books have been published to date.

10,000 products have been created by the 250 Miffy licensees throughout the world.

89 million Miffy picture books have been sold worldwide since her birth in 1955.

15.5cm is the length of each side of Bruna's Miffy books. They are designed to help small hands handle them.

2,000 The number of covers Dick Bruna designed for his father's publishing house.

5 The basic Bruna palette: red, blue, yellow, white and green.

£150 million Miffy's annual income.

1,200 works are currently on show at the dick bruna huis in Utrecht.

12 The number of pages in every Miffy book.

(From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/donotmigrate/3557810/Dick-Bruna-creator-of...

Various Miffy & Dick Bruna Flickr Sets

Dot Com Site http://www.miffy.com/
Great interactive features on this site, including a Miffy colouring app in which you can print out your own coloured pictures (also colouring templates on this site: http://www.coloring-pages-kids.com/coloring-pages/cartoon-character-coloring-...
Official site http://www.miffy.org/
Book covers by Dick Bruna http://www.retrobook.com/
Great article on Dick Bruna http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Dick-Bruna/
Miffy Fans on Deviant Art http://miffy-fans.deviantart.com/
Do you have Dutch characteristics (And should Miffy & Hello Kitty duke it out?) http://www.homejapan.com/miffy-vs-hello-kitty

YouTube: Dutch Profiles: Dick Bruna - 

YouTube: Design inspiration with Miffy creator - 

YouTube: Dick Bruna 'Boris and the Umbrella' - 

Quotations by Dick Bruna

“I would love to be able to draw like a child, so spontaneous, so open-minded on those big sheets. As an adult you start to draw and then hope that you make something good, something beautiful. A child is not like that, they start and see what happens... I draw things you will see close to home, things that I also like. Maybe I still think a bit like a child, I have a childish mind, I think. There are a lot of things I don’t understand.”

"Most of my books start a little bit more complicated and then I try to simplify them."

"I did about 2000 covers altogether, for all sorts of books - from Shakespeare to James Bond - and I always had the idea that I must give 100%, no matter who the author was."

"I think I have always made my books for myself. If they happen to get across to children, then that's my good luck."

"I thought it would be very nice to become Picasso or Rembrandt, or a Van Gogh."

"Right at the beginning, I didn't know if Miffy was a boy or girl."

"I try to reach the same in my text - no difficult words, lots of room for imagination - a balance to the drawing."

"I work very long on each book, sometimes two or three months, because I think all the twelve illustrations have to be nice pieces of graphic art."

"Once I think the drawings are okay, I draw them with a brush and poster paint, the old fashioned way, very very slowly."

"Why is Miffy so timeless? That is difficult to explain, but a child is also timeless."

"Also, the books are very simple."