How I Respond to an Illustration Brief: Inside My Creative Process as a Children's Book Illustrator
What happens when a children's book illustrator receives a brief? How do you go from a single sentence prompt to a fully realised illustration that tells a story, communicates emotion, and showcases your unique creative voice? In this post I take you inside my complete process — from the very first thumbnail sketches all the way through to finished artwork — using real briefs from my own career, including work with Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury, Happy Yak, Mundoazul Books, Penguin Random House, and Walker Books through the prestigious Pathways into Children's Publishing programme. This is what responding to a brief really looks like from the inside.
What was the Pathways into Children's Publishing programme and why was it such a significant moment in your illustration career?
Pathways into Children's Publishing was a programme run by Pop-Up Org in London — one of the most important organisations working to bring less represented voices into the UK children's publishing industry as authors and illustrators. Their mission was to mentor, support, and champion people whose perspectives and stories are currently underrepresented on bookshop shelves.
After successfully illustrating my first children's book — Always Here, written by Kristin Loudon in 2021 — my childhood dream of working as a full-time children's book illustrator came alive again with real force. I began researching the UK children's publishing industry deeply and discovered Pathways. I followed their first programme online during Covid, and in 2022 I began preparing my application for the 2023-24 cohort.
What made Pathways so significant was not just the mentorship and industry access it offered — it was the opportunity to work on real briefs with real publishers. Across the two years of the programme I worked with six publishers: Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury, Happy Yak, Mundoazul Books, Penguin Random House, and Walker Books. Each brief was completely different, each publisher had their own distinct voice and requirements, and each project taught me something new about what professional children's book illustration actually demands.
Getting chosen for the Year 2023-24 programme was one of the proudest moments of my career to that point, and everything that has followed — including my FAB Prize Highly Recommended recognition and my representation with Amy Milligan at Illo Agency — has roots in what I learned and built during those two extraordinary years.
What was the illustration brief for the Pathways application and how did you approach it?
The application brief was beautifully open and creatively demanding at the same time: reimagine any classical story, give it a contemporary twist, and illustrate one page in your own style.
As a child growing up in India, I was raised on folk stories — Panchatantra, Tenali Raman, the rich oral tradition of classical storytelling that shaped my sense of narrative long before I ever picked up a pencil professionally. So when this brief landed in my hands, it felt deeply personal. I went back to reading classic stories, feeling genuinely nostalgic for my childhood, and began the search for the right story to reimagine.
I arrived at Little Red Riding Hood — and the contemporary twist I gave it felt urgent and relevant. In today's world, where children are surrounded by information overload from every direction, navigating digital media and making the right decisions at the right moment is one of the greatest challenges of modern childhood. My reimagining — Little Red Riding Hood Is No More Little — placed that challenge at the heart of the story. A concept I believe has the potential to become a series of books, or even an animated TV series for children, teaching them how to use digital media wisely while spreading the joy of learning and exploration.
Can you walk us through your step-by-step process from brief to finished illustration?
This is the process I follow for every brief I receive — whether it is a publisher commission, a portfolio piece, or a personal project — and it has been refined over years of professional practice working with publishers including Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury, Penguin Random House, and Walker Books.
Stage 1 — Research and story development. I start by reading, researching, and writing. For Little Red Riding Hood, this meant going back to the original story, exploring different versions, and writing my own notes on how the contemporary twist could work. Plotting the story arc and going back and forth on it many times is essential — the stronger the story foundation, the stronger every illustration decision that follows. This applies equally to non-fiction briefs like the one I completed for Bloomsbury, where research depth is everything.
Stage 2 — Thumbnail sketches. This is my favourite stage. Thumbnail sketching — working tiny and fast in my A5 sketchbook — gives me the freedom to explore as many ideas as possible before committing to anything. I make notes directly onto the thumbnails as thoughts come to me, capturing the story logic and visual ideas simultaneously. Whether I was designing toddler book characters for Nosy Crow or developing a concertina silent book for Mundoazul Books, the thumbnail stage is always where the real creative thinking happens.
Stage 3 — Composition and line art. Once I have chosen my thumbnail, I develop it into a full composition using key design principles — Rule of Thirds, depth, rhythm and movement, and the balance between busy environments and clear space for characters. For the Little Red Riding Hood illustration, I chose a vertical layout showing the wolf emerging dramatically from the woods, with the grandmother's house visible on a distant hill. I also went out on a sunny day to sketch in my local park, gathering reference material for the plants, trees, and textures I wanted to include in the environment.
Stage 4 — Colour exploration. Before committing to a final colour palette, I work through multiple colour thumbnail combinations — what animators call colour keys. For the application brief, the constraint was challenging and exciting in equal measure: only 3 colours allowed. I used colour psychology to guide my choices — green for the forest, purple for the symbolic evening sky, and red for both the iconic hood and the red brick house in the background. Even in very small quantities, red commands immediate attention — it is impossible to miss. This kind of deliberate colour thinking carried through into every subsequent project, including the fictional children's book illustrations I developed for Happy Yak.
Stage 5 — Final illustration. The final illustration was developed digitally using Clip Studio Paint, with colour applied in three separate layers inspired by the Risograph printing process. This means the illustration can be reproduced in this colour combination or in any other three colours entirely — giving a completely different mood and feeling each time.
What was it like working with six different publishers through Pathways — and what did each project teach you?
Working with six publishers across two years of Pathways was the most intensive and rewarding professional education I could have had as a children's book illustrator. Every single brief was different — in format, in audience, in visual language, in what the publisher needed from an illustrator.
Nosy Crow — toddler book character design. Working at the youngest end of the picture book spectrum taught me how to distil character design to its absolute simplest and most emotionally immediate. Every line, every shape, every colour choice has to work at the scale of a board book page held in tiny hands.
Bloomsbury — non-fiction book illustrations. Non-fiction illustration requires a completely different mindset — accuracy, clarity, and the ability to make factual content visually engaging and accessible for young readers without sacrificing informational integrity.
Happy Yak — fictional children's book illustrations. Happy Yak's distinctive, character-led publishing voice challenged me to bring warmth, wit, and strong personality to fictional characters in a way that would feel completely at home on their list.
Mundoazul Books — concertina silent book project. A silent book is one of the purest tests of an illustrator's storytelling ability — no words, no text, just sequential images carrying the entire narrative. This project pushed my sequential narrative skills further than almost anything else I have worked on.
Penguin Random House — middle grade fictional chapter book illustration. Working at this scale — 200+ pages of consistent character illustration — was a masterclass in maintaining visual coherence across an entire book. Every character needed to feel alive and consistent whether they appeared on page 3 or page 247.
Walker Books — children's book project. Walker Books is one of the most iconic names in UK children's publishing, and working to their standard was both exhilarating and deeply formative.
Each of these six experiences left a mark on how I work, how I think about briefs, and how I approach every new project — and all of them are visible in my portfolio at gunjabhatt.com.
What does responding to a publisher's brief actually teach you as a children's book illustrator?
Everything. Responding to a brief is where you find out what you actually know as an illustrator — not what you think you know.
A brief strips away the comfort of self-directed work and asks you to serve someone else's vision while still bringing your own creative voice to it. That tension — between the constraints of the brief and the freedom of your style — is exactly where the most interesting illustration happens.
Working across six publishers through Pathways taught me that no two publishers want exactly the same thing — and yet there are universal qualities that every brief rewards: genuine research, strong thumbnail thinking, deliberate design decisions, and a clear visual voice that is confident without being inflexible.
What I learned above everything else is that a brief is not a cage. It is a creative springboard. The constraint of three colours, a specific story, a particular format — these limitations force you to make bolder, more deliberate decisions than you ever would with total freedom. Some of my strongest illustrations have come from the most tightly constrained briefs.
As a children's book illustrator represented by Amy Milligan at Illo Agency, how do you work with publishers and authors on briefs today?
My process today is built on everything I developed through Pathways — six publishers, two years, dozens of briefs — and it is designed to make collaboration with publishers and authors as smooth, transparent, and creatively rewarding as possible.
When I receive a brief I bring:
✦ Deep research and story understanding before a single sketch is made
✦ Multiple thumbnail options so the publisher or author can see the range of creative directions available
✦ Clear communication at every stage — no surprises, no disappearing and reappearing with something unexpected
✦ Colour psychology and deliberate design thinking — every choice is intentional and can be explained
✦ Flexibility within my style — the brief always comes first, and my voice serves the story
Having worked with publishers across the full spectrum of children's publishing — from toddler board books with Nosy Crow to middle grade fiction with Penguin Random House — I understand how different each project's needs are, and I bring that breadth of experience to every new commission.
If you are a publisher, editor, or author looking for a children's book illustrator who takes briefs seriously and brings genuine creative rigour to the process, I would love to work with you. Please visit gunjabhatt.com or get in touch via Amy Milligan at Illo Agency.
Where can we see the illustration work developed through Pathways and your other publisher projects?
The full portfolio of work developed through the Pathways programme — including projects for Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury, Happy Yak, Mundoazul Books, Penguin Random House, and Walker Books — is available to view right here on gunjabhatt.com.
I also have two complete children's book dummies ready for publishers to consider right now:
✦ No More Little — a contemporary reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood exploring how children navigate the digital world, targeted at middle childhood readers
✦ Hush Little Dragon — a whimsical, warm bedtime picture book full of fire-breathing giggles and a secret lullaby only the reader can hear, targeted at children aged 3 to 6
Alongside these, my ongoing chapter book illustration portfolio piece — a contemporary reimagining of Wind in the Willows with an all-female cast — is actively in development and available to view in its current stage on my portfolio page.
If you are a publisher or editor looking for an illustrator with complete, submission-ready book dummies and a proven track record of working to publisher briefs across the full range of children's book formats — I would love to hear from you. Please visit gunjabhatt.com or get in touch via Amy Milligan at Illo Agency.
