A studio service
Busy books, designed to be used again.
A busy book is a binder of activity pages with loose pieces a child matches, sorts and sticks, again and again. We illustrate the pages and the pieces as one printable set, ready to laminate and assemble or to hand to a printer.
N° 01What goes in the set
Pages and pieces, made to match.
01
Matching pages
Shapes, colours, animals and their homes, shadows and halves.
02
Sorting and counting
Sort by size or colour, count the fruit onto the tree, order numbers 1 to 10.
03
Everyday skills
Dress the character for the weather, lay the table, days of the week, feelings faces.
04
Letters and first words
Match letter to picture, build a name, upper to lower case.
05
Cut-out piece sheets
Every loose piece laid out on sheets with cutting guides and marks for fastener dots.
06
Cover, tabs and instructions
A cover page, section dividers and an assembly sheet for the buyer.
N° 02The part that goes wrong
Printed, not stitched.
Busy book and quiet book are often used for the same thing, so it helps to be exact about what we make.
01
Printable, not fabric
We design printed pages and pieces. Sewn felt or cloth quiet books are a craft product we do not manufacture.
02
Pieces that do not fit
A piece and its outline are drawn together at the same size, with room for the fastener.
03
Small parts
Loose pieces are a choking risk for very young children. Piece sizes and age labelling are decided with you, and safety testing is your printer's or lab's job.
04
Selling as a download
If you sell the set as a printable file, the licence you give buyers is yours to set. We deliver the files and the commercial rights to you.
N° 03How it runs
Plan first, artwork after.
01
1. Page plan
We agree the age band, the list of pages and the pieces each one needs.
02
2. Sample pages
Two or three finished pages in the agreed look, so you approve the style and the difficulty before the rest is made.
03
3. Full interior
Every page produced to the plan, with answers or instructions where the format needs them, then one consolidated round of changes.
04
4. Cover and files
Cover design, front matter and print-ready files at your trim size, set to your printer's or platform's template.
N° 04Investment
Three ways to work together.
Single-format
From $1,600
A starter busy book on one theme.
- Cover illustration and title design
- Up to 12 activity pages
- Matching piece sheets with cutting guides
- Print-ready PDF
- 1 round of revisions
Signature
From $3,200
A full busy book across skills.
- Cover illustration and title design
- Up to 24 activity pages
- Matching piece sheets with cutting guides
- Cover, dividers and assembly sheet
- 2 rounds of revisions
- Social marketing pack
Series
From $7,000
A range by age or season of the year.
- 3+ titles
- Shared characters, palette and cover system
- Shared page system across sets
- Full print files per title
- Series style guide
What every package includes, and what it does not
What you get
- Original artwork made for your book, with full commercial rights
- Editable source files as well as print-ready PDFs
- A written page plan agreed before artwork starts
- Files set to the template of the printer or platform you name
What we don’t do
- Printing, binding and shipping
- ISBNs, publishing account setup or marketing campaigns
- Licensed or trademarked characters
- Laminating, cutting, fasteners or assembly
- Sewn fabric or felt books
- Product safety testing
Page counts above are caps. A longer book, extra revision rounds or a second language are quoted in writing before we start them.
N° 05Questions
The answers we give most often.
- What is the difference between a busy book and a quiet book?
- The terms overlap. Quiet book often means a sewn fabric book; busy book usually means printed, laminated pages with loose pieces in a binder. We design the printed kind.
- Can I sell the busy book as a printable download?
- Yes. You receive full commercial rights, so you can sell printed sets or the files themselves.
- What age are busy books for?
- Most are made for toddlers and preschoolers. We plan the pages for the age band you name and you approve the level on the sample pages.
- Do you supply the laminating and fastener dots?
- No. You receive print files with cutting guides and marks showing where fasteners go. Assembly is done by you, your buyer or your printer.
- Do I own the pages?
- Yes, with full commercial rights and the editable files.
Start your book
Have a book like this in mind?
Tell us the audience, the page count and where it will be printed. You get a page plan and a fixed quote in writing.