A studio service
Children's book design, not just illustration.
The half of a picture book nobody photographs: the page grid, the type, the trim, the spine maths, the file that doesn't come back rejected. Whether we drew the pictures or you did.
Beautiful art in a badly built book is still a badly built book.
N° 01What design means here
Where books quietly fail.
Most first picture books don't fail on the artwork. They fail because the text sits in the gutter, the page count isn't a multiple of four, the spine width was guessed, or the cover was designed at full size and disappears at thumbnail.
Design is the discipline that catches all of that. It's a separate craft from illustration, and it's the one authors most often skip — usually because the illustrator handed over beautiful images and it felt like the book was finished.
N° 02The work
Six things that have to be right.
01
Page grid and margins
A consistent grid across the book, with safe margins that keep text clear of the gutter and the trim edge — so nothing important sits where the binding eats it.
02
Typography for the reading age
Type size, leading and letterform chosen for who's reading. A book for fives is set very differently from a book for eights, and both are set differently from a read-aloud.
03
Text and image relationship
Words placed into the composition rather than dropped over it — using the quiet areas the illustration leaves, or reserving them deliberately when the art is still being made.
04
Cover and full wrap
Front, spine and back as one continuous piece, with spine width calculated from your actual page count and paper stock.
05
Trim, bleed and print spec
Built to the printer you're actually using. KDP, IngramSpark and offset printers all want different things, and the differences are where files get rejected.
06
Ebook edition
A reflowable or fixed-layout export that doesn't destroy the spreads — sized for the store rather than exported at whatever the print file happened to be.
N° 03Who it's for
Authors, illustrators, and small imprints.
Authors who commissioned artwork and now have a folder of images and no book. This is the most common brief we get, and the fastest to turn around.
Illustrators who draw beautifully and would rather not spend a fortnight fighting spine-width calculators. We'll set your work and credit you properly.
Small imprints running several titles who need a house grid and type system so their list looks like a list rather than six unrelated books.
N° 04Investment
Three ways to work together.
Interior layout
From $890
Your artwork and manuscript, set as a book.
- Page grid and margin system
- Typography set for reading age
- Text placed into the artwork
- Front and back matter
- Print-ready interior PDF
- Two rounds of revision
Cover + interior
From $1,600
The full book designed as one object.
- Everything in interior layout
- Full cover wrap (front · spine · back)
- Spine maths for your page count and stock
- Thumbnail legibility check
- Editable title typography
- Ebook edition
- Three rounds of revision
Imprint system
From $2,600
A house style across a list of titles.
- Everything in cover + interior
- Reusable grid and type system
- Series cover and spine treatment
- Master template files
- Print spec sheet per printer
- Extended revision support
N° 05Questions
The answers we give most often.
- I already have illustrations — can you just do the layout?
- Yes, and it's the most common version of this job. Send the artwork and the manuscript; we'll set the type, build the grid, handle trim and bleed, and deliver print-ready files. We don't need to have drawn the pictures.
- What trim size should my book be?
- 8×8 and 8.5×8.5 square are the picture-book defaults; 8.5×11 portrait suits activity and early-reader books. The right answer depends on your printer, page count, and where it sells. We'll recommend one and explain why.
- Why does page count have to be a multiple of four?
- Books print on folded sheets, and each sheet yields four pages — so the total must divide by four. That's why picture books are 24, 32 or 40 pages and almost never 30. It's the most common reason a first layout gets rebuilt.
- Can you fix a book KDP rejected?
- Usually. Rejections are nearly always trim, bleed, spine width, resolution, or a covered barcode area. Send the file and the rejection message and we'll tell you what it is before quoting.
- What typeface should a children's book use?
- Something with generous counters, unambiguous letterforms, and a single-storey 'a' and 'g' for the youngest readers. Size matters more than family — text set too small is the failure we're most often asked to fix.
Start your book
Let's build the book properly.
Tell us what you have — finished artwork, a manuscript, a rejected file — and which printer you're heading for. We'll reply within two working days.