Designing the Secret of Kells

by Tomm Moore (Editor), Ross Stewart, Eloise Scherrer (Designer)

By Director Tom Moore and Art Director Ross Stewart. Foreword by Charles Solomon. Designed by Eloise Scherrer. Over 1000 pieces of preproduction art are reproduced in this book, with commentary throughout by the filmmakers.

Genres: Art, Animation, Nonfiction, Reference, Film

236 pages, Hardcover

First published June 3, 2014

About the author

Irish filmmaker, animator, illustrator and comics artist. He is co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, an animation studio and production company, based in Kilkenny, Ireland. His first two feature films, The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014), have received critical acclaim and were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Reviews

[Michael]

If you’ve ever watched The Secret of Kells, you know that the studio Cartoon Saloon doesn’t do things halfway. That same spirit translates over to this art book, which is a trove of concept and production art for the animated movie. The structure follows the basic plot and includes commentary from team members about behind-the-scenes decisions and how their style evolved. But the artwork is the true focus here, showcasing plenty of splash pages and exploratory sketches. It’s also really cool to see how illumination and Gaelic design influenced the team throughout their process. There’s a big focus on environments, especially in the forest section, but there’s a fair amount of character work as well. And the book itself is hefty and bound well - just the way a coffee table book should be. Definitely recommended for fans of animation or art books in general.

[Alec Longstreth]

I loved seeing the development of the style for this groundbreaking film. It was fascinating to see how it started as a fairly straightforward hand-drawn animated film, but over a long development period became more and more refined until it ended up at its unique form, inspired by the illuminated manuscript at the center of the story.

[Marinavartiaga]

<3

[Alison Lilly]

An astoundingly beautiful book that captures the art (and heart) of an astoundingly beautiful film! What a special solstice gift! :) <3

[Kayleigh]

I can't describe how much I love this art style. The secret of kells is just gorgeous.

[Linda]

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

I first saw The Secret of Kells a few years ago and immediately fell in love with the art style. It was simple yet amazingly intricate, and called back to the medieval illuminations by which it was inspired, particularly the illustrations in the famous Book of Kells. The movie was great in itself, but the art style was what made me come back to it again and again. When I visited Ireland in 2015 I made a point to see the real Book of Kells (and immediately got the soundtrack in my head as I did so!) and was even lucky enough to see Song of the Sea, the next animated film by Cartoon Saloon, on the big screen (it's just as gorgeous as The Secret of Kells, of course). Visiting Ireland made me realise that the art in TSoK breathes Irish history and Irish art, and so when I found out there was a book called Designing the Secret of Kells, I had to have it.

I was not disappointed.

Is it weird that an art book makes you cry? If so, call me weird. The book allows you to drink in all the details and find out all the references of the artwork. All the drawings, both of the characters and the backgrounds, are incredibly detailed, making you spend some time just pouring over an image. I simply loved it.

If you loved the movie, if you love (Irish) art, cartoon design, or just some damn good drawings... get this book.

[Sarah Schanze]

Gorgeous work. Every page was full of amazing artwork!

[Neatia]

This is definitely worth a read if you're a fan of the film. The artbook has concept art for every character and goes into detail behind the process of bringing the film to life.