Through the Eyes of Om: Exploring Malaysia

Project Overview

Through the Eyes of Om: Exploring Malaysia by Sonny Tannan is a cultural travel picture book that uses a child’s fresh perspective to bring Malaysia’s cities, food, traditions, and family warmth to life. Om is a curious traveller who organises his discoveries in sets of three — a charming structural device that makes the book both memorable and genuinely educational, giving young readers a framework for absorbing new information. Sonny Tannan writes with the particular affection of someone sharing a heritage they love, and the Malaysia that emerges on the page is specific, vivid, and inviting.

The illustration challenge was representing Malaysia with enough cultural accuracy and visual richness to make the country feel genuinely knowable — its architecture, its food, its landscapes, and the warmth of Om’s extended family all needed to feel real and particular rather than generically “exotic.”

Role

The illustration challenge was representing Malaysia with enough cultural accuracy and visual richness to make the country feel genuinely knowable. Its architecture, food, landscapes, and the warmth of Om’s extended family all needed to feel real and particular rather than generically exotic.

Full illustration across the book covered character design for Om, his family, and the Malaysian community cast, Malaysian cultural landscape, architecture, and food illustration, visual structure supporting the “sets of three” narrative device, and print-ready file preparation.

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.