Quirky Questions We Asked During the Making of Monkey with a Tool Belt and the Craftiest Christmas Ever

How do you decide what’s logical in a picture book world filled with talking animals and vehicles made out of fruit? Below, Art Director Danielle Carnito shares some snippets of hilarious art and details some of the wackiest questions that arose during the creation of Monkey with a Tool Belt and the Craftiest Christmas Ever by Chris Monroe!

If you ever wonder if a designer really looks at every single aspect of a book when designing….yes. Yes we do. For this post I asked designer Lindsey Owens to give us some insight on choices behind the design elements in our new Twenty-First Century Books title Natural Satellites: The Book of Moons by Ron Miller — here’s the scoop:

By Danielle Carnito, Art Director

Making a list of possible artists for picture books is standard procedure here. We make shortlist through searching for style, through thought, through discussion, through sharing top picks with the author, through Ooohs and Aaaahs and “Wouldn’t it be great if (insert famous illustrator name) could work on this book?” We — in this case designer Viet, editor Carol, and Art Director me — spend time carefully finding and talking through the many possibilities and narrow to shortlist of artists, whom I then start reaching out to with the illustration proposal.

Picture books aren’t that quick to make. Sure, there can be exceptions, but mostly they involve a lot of time and love and work. It can be years from start of a project to the book release, when you hope that thing you worked on for so long gets a good reception when it finally makes out into the world. I took a look back at events in the timeline of one of our new Fall picture books; A Bowl Full of Peace by Caren Stelson, illustrated by Akira Kusaka. Here now is a little window into one picture book’s timeline (from the Art Director’s perspective, of course):

by Danielle Carnito, Trade Art Director

In our Millbrook imprint, we recently started publishing highly visual expository nonfiction specifically geared toward young readers in grades K-3. Anytime we start a new type of book, working through the design aspects to figure out what we really need to communicate visually is always a fun exercise.