The Brief: Illustrate a children’s picture book written by Kayla McIntosh centered around a uniquely coloured reindeer named Lumi as she discovers what it means to be loved for exactly who she is.
The Problem: The appearance of the main character, Lumi, needed to be appropriate and endearing for young kids, but also anatomically accurate to a real reindeer. This was incredibly important to the author, who runs a real reindeer farm and needed the details to be authentic. We also faced the challenge of keeping the visuals from feeling too strictly Christmas-themed, while designing a variety of fluid layouts that could comfortably accommodate larger blocks of text without crowding the art.
The Solution: I developed a character design for Lumi using a soft, off-white color palette that allowed her to stand out clearly on every page. I then curated the background environments using contrasting tones to accent her, making her stark white coat naturally draw the reader's eye right into the focal point of the scene. To handle the text-heavy manuscript and keep the pacing dynamic, I utilized a rich variety of layouts—ranging from full double-page spreads to quiet spot illustrations and three-quarter page designs—to create continuous visual interest and support the narrative flow.
The Impact: Since this book is currently in production and hasn't been officially released yet, the immediate impact was a thrilled author who felt their real-world expertise was beautifully and accurately represented.
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