Book illustration
Illustrations are a powerful way to bring your story to life and grab your reader's attention. It is also a great way to depict subjects or complex stories that can’t be photographed.
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As an illustrator I like to enhance your story with beautiful images. My specialization is making spacial-looking digital illustrations. I always base the style on your wishes, the purpose of your book and (the age and interests of) your target audience. As you can see in my portfolio and below I am able to work in realistic, semi-realistic and cartoon styles. What my versatile work has in common is my fascination for light and shadow. I don’t like artworks that look ‘flat’ and I always try to give my 2D work a bit of a tree dimensional feeling. Below I will describe more specific what I can do for your book.
Illustration for your book cover
A good book cover arouses curiosity in your reader. It also summarizes or gives a hint to what your story is about. I would love to help you grab your reader’s attention with a personalized book cover design. Below a cover illustration I made for ‘Tekke the tick and how man outsmarted him’. The book cover tells a lot about the main character: A grumpy tick who dislikes people because they outsmart him every time he tries to bite them. His paw is pinching the word ‘man’ in the title.
I made this book in collaboration with teacher Marga Heesters to educate children about avoiding tick bites.
You can view the full book here and purchase it in my shop.
Besides children’s books I also illustrate for adult books. Below some more about these two services and the cost.
Children's book illustration
I like to help visualize your story in a way that suits your target group and your wishes best.
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The most important part of illustrating is visual storytelling. An image should convey clearly what a story or page is about. The viewer will look for meaning behind everything that is clearly present in an image. The trick is therefore to make the most important subjects stand out and adding only elements that make the illustration more interesting (mainly some sort of background). This without changing the message the image should communicate to the reader.
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I always adapt the style and complexity of the illustrations to the target group and theme of your book. For younger children I often create clear and colourful illustrations. I also determine the amount of visual elements based on age. The younger the child is, the more important it is to keep the number of figures low so the illustration remains clear. For older children the illustrations can be more complex and a bit more serious depending on the topic of your book.
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Good character design and humour is also very important. I often work with socially engaged writers who educate children about topics that can be quite complicated or scary. The book right above educates children (4 to 8 years old) about preventing tick bites. Ticks are very scary looking tiny spiders and hardly visible in real life. That is why I created a character that is bigger and looks less scary but still looks like a grumpy bad guy. Bad characters often have pointy features and cool colours. The butterfly, on the other hand, looks immediately like a good character because of the round shapes, warm colours and friendly eyes.
On the right an illustration I made for a game book for ten year olds. This game book is written by Dana Paat, a back specialist who, by means of a space journey, brings posture education back to primary schools. As you can see the colours are a bit more serious and the characters are tougher than for the book above for younger children. The illustrations are still very clear and suitable for a children’s book.
In short there are a lot of things to consider when it comes too children’s book illustration. If you are looking for an illustrator to enhance your story I love to hear from you!
Illustrations for adult books
For more info about illustrations to enhance adult texts you can take a look at my editorial illustration page.
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I mainly work for educational socially engaged writers, but I love fiction books as well. Feel free to reach out if you can use visual enhancement for your book. I always like to hear more about your story!
For adult books I work a lot with visual metaphors. Visual metaphors are a great way to illustrate complex subjects and to let the reader contemplate on your topic. They also often create surreal atmospheres that take your reader into visually seductive fantasy worlds.
Besides surrealistic scenes I create realistic scenes as well. Below illustrations for the Dutch book 'Optie samenleving' (Option Society) in collaboration with fellow artist Maartje Soeters. 'Optie samenleving' is a contemplative book about sustainability written by Erik Lathouwers. The illustrations depict scenarios and choices written about in the book.
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Graphic design for books
Besides illustrating I am also available to do the layout and typography design for your book. This service starts at €115 for the entire book. I will make sure your book has good looking layout and typography design and I will deliver the final book as a PDF (or other file type on request). Print ready and / or for online use as an e-book, depending on your wishes.
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Are you interested in any of the services above? Feel free to contact me for a no-obligation conversation!
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