7 Where do your Illustrations Belong?

There are several types of books that call for narrative illustrations; as an illustrator, you should be aware of the differences between them, not only for concerns related to the age-appropriateness of style and theme, but also to know which type of book might suit your own style and interests best. Each type of book has slightly different needs and rules, and pitching for these various types of books require different types of portfolios.

Let’s look at the common types of illustrated books, from youngest audience to oldest:

Board books: 

These small, thick-paged books for the youngest audiences (think babies and toddlers who are being read to) are generally short in length (between 12 and 24 pages) because the thickness of the paperboard pages make longer lengths unsupportable in this format. The small format with rounded edges makes the books easy to hold, difficult to tear, and more able to withstand saliva, sticky hands, or being thrown, while the thick pages are easy to turn by children whose hands lack precise motor skills.

Stories in board books are the simplest, introducing children to basic concepts: letters, numbers, colors, sounds, letters, and language, animals and their babies, and family relationships are among the most common. Some include texture for sensory exploration; think of Dorothy Kundhart’s Pat the Bunny, which had pages that allowed children to feel the softness of the bunny’s fur, the scratchiness of Dad’s beard, and so on.

Illustrations in board books tend to be simple, bright, and not very abstract. Oftentimes, illustrations rely on high contrast, which is the easiest for the youngest children to see.

Picture Books (Children’s Books): 

Picture books have become increasingly wonderful over the years, with rooms for many types of styles, visual complexity or simplicity, and a wonderful play between text and image. Some are even wordless. As most of these images are not open-access, let’s link to the sites of some well-known contemporary illustrators known for their picture book work.

Sophie Blackall has won two Caldecott medals: the award for the best picture book of the year, granted by the ALA, the American Library Association. She is known for whimsical, colorful illustrations rendered in watercolor or watercolor and cut paper. Her book, Finding Winnie, is an example of how she uses research in her books to make them beautiful learning experiences for children.

Oliver Jeffers works in rich oil or watercolor with simple characters, lush colors, and his trademark hand-lettering style. A good example of his style is Here We Are, a guide to living on earth made for his young child.

The Fan Brothers work together to create a highly-detailed, whimsical, moody style. Their book, The Night Gardener, is a good example of how this style can work in picture books.

Christian Robinson uses bright colors and a simple style to create his picture book world. His books You Matter and Last Stop on Market Street are testimonies to loving family and others.

Oftentimes, illustrators will work in conjunction with an author whom they may not meet or even speak to in advance. Some illustrators are author-illustrators who write and illustrate their own text. Some do both. You can decide what’s best for you. Those who do both have the greatest flexibility when pitching to agents as they have the ability to submit entire book dummies, mock-ups of whole books for an agent or editor to see the whole scope of the story with sketched versions of illustrations.

Picture books are generally 32 pages, but are printed in multiples of 8: 40, 48, 64, and so on are available to the illustrator, but less common than the standard 32. These pages include the front matter: title, copyright information, and dedication, leaving the number of pages to use for your story somewhere between 29-30. They can be hardcover or softcover. Hardcover books give the illustrator the ability to make end pages: decorative pages that bind the backs of the front and back cover.

Here is an example of endpages; you can see that Potter has added her characters as a type of introduction to the flavor and content of the book, but it also serves to illustrate the larger world of her books and beloved characters:

In the early 20th century, the format for illustrated books was simple: text on one page, black and white or color illustrations on the other. This was due to limitations of printing; mixing color images and text would come later.  Sometimes there would be a spot illustration alongside the text. The format was predictable, rigid, and even boring, so all of the charm had to come from the illustrations themselves. Here is an example:

This style seen above, with a full page illustration on one side of the spread and a spot on the other, is generally more common in middle grade books, which depend more on the text. We see this much more in older picture books such as this, The Three Little Pigs, from 1904, whereas picture books now utilize every sort of format: splash pages, spreads, spots, even paneled pages that mimic comics. There are no limitations.

Middle Grade Books

Middle Grade books are young reader chapter books that straddle the divide between a picture book and a novel in that they still include illustrations. Often in black and white due to cost, these illustrations generally come in spots or splashes, but more modern books, like Jim Kay’s A Monster Calls, are becoming increasingly interesting and elaborate in their use of illustrations integrated with the text. Here is an interview with the author and illustrator that tells how they made the illustrations for that book. 

Middle grade books offer the illustrator great flexibility in playing with drama and character emotions, as the characters are usually older, allowing them to have greater adventures. Practicing drawing older children is a great way to prepare yourself for middle grade work, and a series of illustrations in this vein are a great addition to a portfolio, something we will discuss later in this book.

The trend in the late 19th- and early 20th-century was to have elaborately designed engravings, like this one by French artist Gustave Doré, which filled in vivid detail that could stimulate the viewer’s imaginations toward the fantastic and the romantic. Beyond being beautiful to look at, as well as technically wonderful, these illustrations can teach the artist a lot about drama, composition, value, line, and perspective.

It was also popular to use oil paintings, watercolor paintings, or other color media printed in rich color in these older style books. Here is an example of a splash page by Edmund Dulac, who was known for his color. It takes a rich publisher these days to have Middle Grade books printed in this colorful manner. this is much less common today; artists are free to work in any media that can be done in black and white.

This focus on color is much less common today; but in working in black and white, artists are free to work in any media that can be rendered in greyscale, and can offer an excellent challenge.

So, where does your art belong?