STRUCTURING A CHILDREN‘S BOOK
By following the next steps, a children’s book can be effectively planned, designed, and prepared for printing, ensuring a polished and professional final product for the young audience.
STEP 1. MANUSCRIPT FINALIZATION, LAYOUT
Story Manuscript: Ensure manuscript is fully edited and finalized.
Determine Book Size: on the book's dimensions (e.g., 8.5” x 11”).
Page Count: Confirming the total number of pages, including front and back covers, end pages, copyright, and title pages.
Pagination and Sluglines: the manuscript into page-by-page segments (spreads), establishing where the text will appear throughout the book, and providing a framework for illustration planning and narrative flow.
Illustration and Character Briefs: Preliminary draft of key scenes, character briefs, and visual/literary references drawn from relevant books, films, and animation for inspiration. The number and types of illustrations evolve from here and change multiple times during project development.
STEP 2. CHARACTER DESIGN
Character design: The manuscript provides basic character details, while additional bios, created specifically for the illustrator, help ensure unique designs that reflect personality. I pay extra attention to character development, using my analytical and theoretical knowledge from my background in character design for animation and video games.
The Saggaloo And The Patoo Character Design - Gilad Moskowitz
STEP 3. STORYBOARD & LAYOUT
Storyboard Thumbnails: Sketching small, rough thumbnails of each spread to plan the flow of text and illustrations.
Further Layout Development: The basic layout for each page, placing text boxes and placeholders for illustrations.
The Saggaloo And The Patoo Sketches - Gilad Moskowitz
STEP 4. Dummy Book and Color Keys
Dummy Book: A printed mock-up is created after the initial manuscript, pagination, and illustration plan are approved. The dummy serves as a critical checkpoint to assess story flow, visual rhythm, and page-turn dynamics. It helps determine whether the book is on the right track or requires structural adjustments before moving into final development.
Color Keys: Small, loose studies used to establish the color palette, lighting, and mood of each scene or spread.
STEP 5. Cleaning Up the Sketches and Creating the Final Render
In the example above, we can see all the steps that follow the establishment of the scenes and color palette:
1. Linework – Refining the initial sketch by tightening the drawing and ensuring that the composition, perspective, and forms are clean, accurate, and well-defined.
2. Flat Colors – Applying flat base colors before beginning the painting process.
3. Final Render – Completing the fully painted and finished illustration.
In this particular example, there is an additional version of the final illustration. The author wanted to preserve the loose, sketch-like quality present in the initial concept phase and preferred the colors to remain mostly flat, with only subtle shadows and highlights. This approach also helped achieve the vintage aesthetic he envisioned for the illustrations.
INTERIOR ILLUSTRATIONS EXAMPLES
Step 6. Cover Illustration
When it comes to cover design, we follow the same process as for interior illustrations: sketching, cleaning up the sketch, creating color variations, and completing the final render. For this project, we adapted one of the interior illustrations with a few adjustments to make it more suitable for the cover, as both the author and I felt it was a perfect fit for that purpose.
Step 7. BOOK FORMATTING AND PREPARATION FOR PRINTING
When all illustrations, including the cover and end pages, are approved, we move on to the remaining steps toward publishing. From here on, the book designer takes over, and the next steps look like this:
Selecting the final font
Integrating illustrations and text, front and back cover with blurb and barcode, copyright page text, biographies, and dedication
Proofreading and quality review
Implementing feedback and final revisions
Final layout approval
Pre-press preparation (color profiles, bleed, trim, file export)
Printer communication and file handoff (includes specifications, dielines, barcode placement, and paper/print preferences)
Printing the sample approval before the full run
That’s it! I’ve covered every aspect of my approach to illustrating a children’s book, which I’ve found to be the most effective. While every illustrator may have a slightly different workflow, this is the method that works best for me.
I hope you enjoyed reading and that you now have a clear understanding of the entire process. If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I’d be happy to help! :)