Football Freddie & Fumble the Dog: Gameday in Chicago

Project Overview

Football Freddie & Fumble the Dog: Gameday in Chicago by Marnie Schneider and Jonathan Witten takes the series to one of America’s most visually distinctive cities. Freddie and Fumble explore Chicago’s iconic landmarks — the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park, the bustling Navy Pier, and more — before cheering on the Bears at Soldier Field.

Chicago’s skyline and cultural identity are so strong and specific that the illustration challenge was significant: rendering its architecture, its lakefront, and its neighbourhoods convincingly for a picture book audience required careful research and compositional decisions across every spread, making every landmark feel instantly recognisable while remaining warm and accessible for young readers.

Role

The illustration challenge was rendering Chicago’s strong, specific visual identity, its architecture, lakefront, and neighbourhoods, convincingly for a picture book audience. Every spread required careful research and compositional decisions to make each landmark instantly recognisable while keeping the tone warm and accessible for young readers.

Full illustration across the book covered character design consistency for Freddie, Fumble, and the series cast, Chicago skyline and landmark architecture illustration, visual storytelling and scene development, and print-ready file preparation.

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.