Boy and Toy

Project Overview

Boy and Toy by Jessica Young is a quiet, joyful picture book about the particular relationship between a child and a favourite toy — the kind of relationship where an object becomes a genuine companion and the world around them becomes whatever they decide it is. The boy and his toy travel through ordinary streets that become extraordinary journeys, visible only to them. Jessica Young writes with a lightness that respects the interior life of children without over-explaining it, trusting readers to recognise the feeling immediately.

The illustration challenge was showing two simultaneous realities on the page — the literal world that adults see, and the imaginative world the boy inhabits — in a way that felt seamless rather than jarring, so that readers moved between the two as naturally as the boy himself does.

Role

Full book illustration covered dual-reality illustration spanning the literal and imagined worlds, and visual storytelling of a child’s imaginative interior life, along with print-ready file preparation for Mascot Books.

The core challenge was showing two simultaneous realities on the page, the literal world that adults see and the imaginative world the boy inhabits, in a way that felt seamless rather than jarring, so readers moved between the two as naturally as the boy himself does.

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.