Baby MD: Neurology in the Park

Project Overview

Baby MD: Neurology in the Park by Julia Grant is a STEM picture book pitched at the youngest possible audience — infants, toddlers, and early learners — making the science of neurology accessible through the most natural learning environment a child knows: play. Joe spends the day at the park with his aunt, and every game, every activity, every moment of outdoor adventure becomes a simple, age-appropriate window into how the brain works. Julia Grant writes with a clarity that never talks down to young readers, and the result is a book that works equally as a family read-aloud and a classroom introduction to science.

The illustration challenge was making neuroscience concepts visible and joyful on the page — brain activity needed to feel connected to the fun Joe was having, not abstracted from it, so that the science and the story felt like the same thing rather than parallel tracks.

Role

The illustration challenge was making neuroscience visible to the youngest possible readers without ever slowing the story down. Joe’s brain activity needed to feel like a natural extension of his day at the park rather than a diagram bolted onto it, so every STEM concept had to arrive through play itself — a swing, a toy car, a butterfly — rather than through explanation. Getting the science and the fun to read as the same thing, for an audience as young as newborns, meant every spread had to work on sight alone.

Full illustration across the book covered character design for Joe, his aunt, and park companions, visualization of STEM concepts for very young readers, outdoor play environment design, and print-ready file preparation for Mascot Kids.

Character Design

Before a single page is illustrated, I develop the main characters in full — defining their proportions, expressions, and personality. This is the foundation that keeps your characters recognizable and consistent across every scene, every lighting condition, and every emotional moment in the project.

Process

Every project follows this same structured path, so you always know where we are and what comes next. You review and approve at the sketch stage and the line art stage — nothing moves to color until you’re happy. By the time the final spread is rendered, there are no surprises.