The Hair She Wears

Project Overview

The Hair She Wears by Deepika Kaur Pujji is a lyrical, rhyming picture book that celebrates the cultural and spiritual significance of uncut hair in Sikh tradition through the eyes of a young girl who wears it with pride. Each page brings her spirit to life — hair flowing in braids, waving freely in the wind, shining with the simple elegance of a bow — as the text reveals what each expression of her hair represents: not just appearance, but identity, faith, and the values her community holds dear.

The illustration challenge was giving hair itself a kind of character — it needed to feel alive, expressive, and emotionally resonant rather than merely decorative. Every spread required careful attention to how the hair moved, caught light, and reflected the girl’s inner world, making it a visual presence as meaningful as the words beside it.

Role

Deepika’s story is unusual in that the visual subject — hair — had to carry the weight of the book’s emotional argument. It wasn’t enough to illustrate a girl in different settings; the hair itself needed to feel alive and expressive, shifting in character from spread to spread while always remaining recognizably hers. That meant every composition had to think carefully about how the hair moved, caught light, and embodied the quality the text was naming.

From developing the protagonist’s character through to print-ready files, I worked across the full 32-page illustration, maintaining cultural accuracy in every costume, environment, and symbolic detail while making sure each spread gave hair the kind of presence the book’s concept required.

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.