FIVE WAYS TO WORK AS A CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATOR ✸ PICTURE BOOK BASICS #1
Let's talk Illustration categories!
I’ve made many videos in the past on how I illustrate my books, how to start your illustration career, and the business side of industry, however I realized that there aren’t a lot of resources out there for people who are completely new to picture books that go over the absolute basics.
So I’m starting a new series called Picture Book Basics!
Today we’re talking about the types of Childrens illustration Categories you can work in.
When you’re talking about illustration within the children’s publishing industry, you’re going to be looking at five possible categories of illustration:
Picture Books
Board Books
Early Readers
Chapter Books
Graphic Novels
Covers.
These are all different types of books and areas of illustration you could potentially work in. Each of these are distinct mainly because of page count and who their audience and age group is, but there are many differences and similarities between them.
It’s helpful to learn about these categories because, although some illustrators are flexible and can illustrate work from all five categories, most illustrators will stick to one or two depending on their strengths, weaknesses and personal preferences.
You might find that your art style is more successful in a certain category, like maybe your style is perfect for cover art but maybe too mature for picturebooks. Or you’ll learn that there are certain categories you are more drawn to, and there are some you just don’t like doing at all.
For example, I’ve worked in all six categories, but these days I focus mostly on picture books and board books since it’s what I enjoy most.
With this information, you can then focus your portfolio on the area of illustration you’re the strongest in, instead of wasting time on ones you’re not really passionate about. I see a lot of guides that say that you have to include cover art or black and white spots etc in your portfolio, but if you’re not suited for it then what’s the point. Remember, art directors will hire you based on the examples in your portfolio, and you always want to make sure it is comprised of your best work in the area you are passionate about and want to work in.
Let’s look at each category in detail.
PICTURE BOOKS
Picture books are books with mostly illustrations and are designed to be read aloud with children. The wordcount is usually going to be around 500 words max, but this can vary wildly from book to book. You might pick up one book with 1000 words, and another that only has 150. Non-fiction picture books will usually be on the higher end because they are target at older readers and have more information to convey. Interestingly, word count has actually also been decreasing in the past few years, so we might even start to see 300 words as the average soon.
The age range is 2-8 years old, and the stories will become more complex as you go up in age.
For example, my book That’s Not My Name is targeted to kids 3-5 years old, and has very simple text and concepts, following a simple storyline and moral at the end.
My book Rise Up and Write It! in contrast is targeted to ages 4-8, and has a higher word count, deals with more complex topics and also has a fun novelty aspect.
Picture books are generally going to have 32 pages, which includes the title page, endpapers and copyright. But they can come in any page-count that are multiples of 8, like 16, 24, 32, 40 or 48 pages. This is because of how the books are printed and assembled, but that’s a topic for another video.
Picture books can be a team effort written by an author and illustrated by a separate artist, or they can be created by a single author/illustrator.
BOARD BOOKS
Board books are books filled with mostly illustrations with very minimal text. They are called board books because they are made out of paperboard. These are much sturdier books with rounded edges because this target audience is going to be babies and toddlers from ages 0 to 5. Board books are designed to be read aloud, because the target audience can’t read. But they’re also easy for babies to hold onto, turn pages and develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor-skills.
The subject matter will be very simple and cover topics like shapes, colors and numbers. A lot of board books will have a novelty aspect to them for brain stimulation. So you’ll find fun interactive elements like lift-the-flap, sound buttons, die-cuts, and textures to play with.
You will see a much lower page-count here. These board books are usually between 8 and 12 spreads (16 to 24 pages). However, sometimes you will find board books that are 32-pages long; this is usually when a picturebook is adapted into a boardbook format.
Board books will have word count of less than 300, and sometimes completely wordless depending on the book.
Because of how expensive it is to produce a board book and how small the profit margin is, in most cases a board book will be written by the in-house publishing team, or by an author-illustrator.
EARLY READERS
Early Readers are a kid’s first introduction to Chapter books for ages 4-8 years old and are a bridge between picture books and chapter books. These are 1500 words max and around 32-60 pages for kids who are just starting to read. Early readers usually have strict guides on vocabulary, sentence structure and the books can even be labelled towards specific age groups. The ‘I Can Read’ books is a great example. Early readers usually come in series with repetitive storylines or based off of movies and tv shows.
While they look similar to chapter books, they are quite short and are heavily illustrated. You’ll see a combination of spots, spreads and single page illustrations in full color. Almost every page will have some sort of illustration on it.
CHAPTER BOOKS
Now we’re at the big kid books! This is a huge category and the age range can go from 6-12 years old. Depending on the age, the word count will be between 5000 to 15000 words, and 100-180 pages.
Because this is an older audience, we will see fewer illustrations now since that this is a text-heavy book. For ages 6-9 you might still see an illustration on every other page, but these will mostly be spots and occasionally single page illustrations. Ages 9-12 will have even fewer and might only have a handful of illustrations, like one for each chapter.
You’ll notice that we are now dealing with a totally different paper quality now, and that is going to effect the kind of illustrations we’ll see inside.
The illustrations are now in black and white or greyscale. Sometimes you might have an additional accent color mixed in. For my Monster & Boy series, we did a different spot color for each of the books.
BOOK COVERS
Once we get to an even older audience, we stop seeing illustrations inside the book. Because, adults don’t like fun, I guess.
However, you might still see an illustrated cover these books. You’ll see this less often for ‘adult’ books, but illustrated covers are very common for younger audiences.
Middle Grade books are for ages 8-12, while Young Adult books are for ages 12-18.
These book covers can come in a wide variety of styles depending on the age and genre, but usually, the artwork will be a bit more mature featuring characters with realistic proportions.
I love doing book cover artwork, and you can see that I do adjust my style to be more mature and realistic to fit the age group. Some of these books will only be illustrated on the front, while others will have a wrap-around cover. And very few books will have a handful of black and white interior illustrations.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
This is cheating because I think Graphic novels are more like a medium than a category, but I wanted to include it anyway because Graphic novels have been absolutely booming in the children’s space in recent years. While a comic book tells a story over several issues, a graphic novel is usually a more complex self-contained story with more pages. Basically, a novel told through sequential illustration.
Just like traditional books, they come in many different page lengths and word counts depending on the age group. Examples of graphic novels for young kids include Dewdrop and Shark Princess.
They can also have a separate author and illustrator, or be created by one person. Graphic novels come in a wide variety of styles and in black and white or full color.
And these are the major children’s publishing categories! As you work on your illustration portfolios, do your research and read as many books as you can to get an idea of the differences, any recurring patterns and to find out what areas you are most suited towards. Then you can create some sample pieces that fit that category.
Like I said, if you have the flexibility you could find work in all five categories. Depending on your art style, this might just need a slight teak to better cater it to each age group. Like in my artwork, I feel like even though I adjust my style slightly it’s still recognizable as my own. But it’s also fine to drastically change it as well; Teagan White is an excellent example who is able to easily switch between a juvenile style vs. one that very dark and mature.
I hope this helps! And let me know what other topics I should focus on! :)
What a wonderful roundup. I always forget about chapter books! Thank you! 💖
Your monsters are so flippin' cute! 💙