A studio service
A picture book starring your dog.
An illustrated storybook about one real dog: their name set into the cover and carried through the text on every page, and the dog drawn to their actual breed — not a generic cartoon dog with a name pasted underneath.
One dog. Their name. Their face.
N° 01Kinds of dog books
Books made for one dog.
01
Gotcha day books
The day they came home — the shelter, the car ride, the first night on the wrong sofa. The story most dog owners tell out loud anyway, made into something they can hand to a child.
02
Birthday books
A whole book about the dog whose birthday it is, with their name in the title and their breed on every page.
03
Puppy's first year
Twelve months of chewed furniture and stolen socks, illustrated. Usually bought by the person who did the clearing up.
04
Memorial books
For a dog who has died. Handled quietly and slowly — a keepsake for a family, often for a child who is meeting loss for the first time.
05
Multi-dog households
Two or three dogs in one book, each drawn to their own breed and size, staged so the little one is never accidentally the same height as the big one.
06
Dog-and-child books
The dog and the child together as a pair, which is what most families actually want illustrated.
N° 02The hard part nobody mentions
Breed is not a colour swap.
Changing the dog in an illustration sounds like the easy half of the job. It isn't, and it's where most personalized dog products quietly fall apart.
A chihuahua is ankle-high with a domed skull and enormous eyes. A bulldog is a low, wide brick with almost no neck. A golden retriever is mid-thigh, long-backed and covered in feathering. Drop them into the same composition and they do not occupy the same space: the chihuahua floats in a gap built for a bigger animal, the bulldog crowds the frame, and the golden's tail goes straight through whatever was behind it.
So we compose the scene around the SPACE the dog occupies, not around one dog. Sightlines, furniture, the height of the windowsill, where the child's hand rests — all of it is placed so that every breed sits in it natively. The room is drawn once. The dog is drawn per breed, at its own real size, and the picture still reads.
The same discipline applies to the dog's own consistency: a character sheet is built per breed — front, three-quarter, side and back — before any page is illustrated, so the dog on page eight is unmistakably the dog on page one.
N° 03For businesses
A product, not just a book.
If you're selling personalized dog books rather than buying one, the requirement is different: one core set of illustrations, several breed versions, and artwork built to accept a name that changes with every order.
We design for that from the first sketch. The name is never painted into the art — the collar tag, the food bowl, the bedroom door plaque are drawn as clean blank shapes with the type set over them at generation time, so your dynamic field composites onto a designed surface instead of covering one up.
Deliverables come as layered source files with the dog on its own layer, the background flattened separately, and the name plate isolated — so swapping a breed or a name is a file operation on your side, not a re-commission on ours.
Common configurations are three to six breeds across eight to sixteen pages plus a cover. We'll quote per breed and per page, and the background set is only ever paid for once.
N° 04How it works
From a few photos to a finished book.
For a single dog: send three to five clear photos — face-on, three-quarter, side, and one full-body so we get the proportions and the tail right. Tell us the details that matter to you, because those are the ones a family notices: the grey muzzle, the one ear that never went up, the notch in the tail.
We build the character sheet first and you approve it before a single page is illustrated. A person makes those calls — coat length, ear set, the exact gold — and the approved sheet is what every page is then drawn against.
The name is typeset when the print files are made, not painted into the artwork, so any spelling works and a reprint with a different name costs nothing but the file.
You get print-ready files at 300 DPI with bleed and trim marks, plus the layered source files. Printing runs through the studio's print partners if you want a finished hardcover rather than a folder.
N° 05What we do — and don't
Made with care.
We illustrate mixed-breed and rescue dogs as readily as pedigrees — most of the dogs we're sent are somebody's best guess at three breeds, and that's fine. Send the photos and we draw the dog in front of us.
Memorial books are handled with particular care. We don't rush them, we don't upsell them, and we'll happily work from imperfect old photos — often the only ones a family has.
We won't illustrate a dog in distress, in a fight, or in any situation a child shouldn't be handed at bedtime. Everything stays warm.
N° 06Investment
Three ways to work together.
One dog, one book
From $640
A single personalized storybook about one dog, for a family.
- Character sheet for your dog, approved before illustration
- 8 illustrated pages plus cover
- Their name set into the cover and every page
- One printed hardcover copy
- Print-ready digital files
- 1 round of revisions
Breed set
From $2,400
One core illustration set adapted across several breeds — the configuration businesses selling personalized books need.
- One core set: cover plus 8 pages
- Three breed versions of the main dog
- Character sheet per breed
- Blank name plates designed for dynamic text
- Layered source files, dog on its own layer
- Print and digital masters at 300 DPI
- 2 rounds of revisions
Product line
From $6,500
A full personalized-book product built to run at volume.
- Cover plus 16 pages
- Six or more breed versions
- Full character sheet library
- Naming and layout spec for your generator
- Layered masters and an asset-naming schema
- Endpapers and dedication page
- Unlimited minor revisions during build
N° 07Questions
The answers we give most often.
- Can you draw my dog specifically, not just the breed?
- Yes, and that's the point of the character sheet. Breed gets you the silhouette; the sheet gets you your dog — the grey muzzle, the odd ear, the notch in the tail, the exact shade of the coat. You approve the sheet before any page is illustrated.
- My dog is a mix. Does that work?
- It works fine. Most of the dogs we're sent are somebody's best guess at three breeds. We draw from the photos rather than from a breed standard, so a mix is no harder than a pedigree.
- Can the name be changed later?
- Yes. The name is never painted into the artwork — it's typeset when the print files are made, over blank plates designed to receive it. A reprint under a different name costs the file, not a re-illustration.
- Can you do several breeds of the same book?
- That's the Breed set tier. The room, the composition and the light are illustrated once; the dog is drawn per breed at its own real size and staged so every version reads natively. You pay for the background set once.
- Do I get editable source files?
- On the Breed set and Product line tiers, yes — layered files with the dog isolated from the background and the name plate on its own layer, so you can swap either without coming back to us.
- Can you illustrate a dog who has died?
- Yes, and we do it often. We'll work from whatever photos exist, including old or blurry ones, and we take these slowly. Tell us as much or as little as you want to.
- How long does it take?
- A single dog book runs about four to five weeks: roughly a week on the character sheet and approvals, then the pages. A three-breed set runs closer to eight, because every page is illustrated once and then adapted three times.
- Can a child be in the book too?
- Yes — dog-and-child is the most requested version. The child gets their own character sheet, built the same way, and the two are staged together so the scale between them stays right on every page.
Start your book
Make a book about your dog.
Send us a few photos and tell us the story — the gotcha day, the birthday, the first year. We'll reply within two working days with a proposal and a draft sketch of your dog.