Children’s Book Design
Designing a children’s book is a different kind of adventure—one filled with imagination, heart, and a thousand tiny details that matter. From trim size and proper pagination to typography, illustration treatment and placement, and production specs, every choice affects the end product and reader experience.
Our team understands that creating a children’s book can feel exhilarating and overwhelming. Whether you’re working with an illustrator, searching for one, or bringing your own artwork to the table, we guide you through every step of the design and production process. We’re here to help you shape a book that feels magical in a child’s hands and looks beautiful on the shelf.
Use our contact form to schedule a free consultation so we can talk through your vision, age range, format, and publishing goals. We’ll help you navigate trim size, pagination, storyboarding, layout, typography, printing options, and distribution platforms so your book is not only charming, but professionally produced and ready for the world.
If you’re an experienced publisher, we understand the nuances of picture books, early readers, and chapter book interiors and would love to become a trusted part of your team.
If this is your very first children’s book, we’ll walk beside you from manuscript to finished files. We believe the journey of creating a book for children should be as joyful as the story itself.
Let’s create something that begs to be read, again and again!
Wherever You Are in the Process, We Can Help
Every picture book project begins in a different place. Some authors come to us with a manuscript and a dream. Others have finished illustrations and a fully mapped-out storyboard. Many fall somewhere in between.
If your book isn’t illustrated yet—or you and your illustrator aren’t sure how to break the text into spreads, how storyboarding works, or how to fill a 24- or 32-page book, we’ll help you build a clear pagination plan. We can also help you determine trim size, printing methods, and even connect you with the right illustrator for your vision.
If your illustrations are complete but need professional refinement, we can enhance and prepare them for print. That may include color correction, tonal adjustments, digital cleanup, resizing, or other production-ready modifications so everything reproduces beautifully.
If you already have a finalized storyboard with text and illustrations placed exactly where you want them, we’ll step in to execute the layout with precision, ensuring typography, spacing, bleed, margins, and printer specifications are handled correctly.
That said, what is the best stage to start working with a designer? Ideally, you’ve decided which illustrator to hire and maybe already started on the character studies. We’ll partner with you and your illustrator to provide expert editing and proofreading services, finalize your book’s pagination, determine printing methods, work through the rough sketch stage to ensure your illustrator leaves the right room for text, and design and lay out your book.
Wherever you are in the journey, we’ll meet you there and guide you the rest of the way.
NEED AN ILLUSTRATOR? Illustration is a separate service not offered directly by TLC Book Design. Visit the recommended illustrator page on our site. We would be happy to help you find the right talent to bring your project to life.
Learn about working with illustrators, why you also need a book designers, terminology, the parts of a picture book and options for creating each, and pitfalls to avoid during the book creation process.