Katie Risor – Designer

Hello!

**In 2023, I'd love to do more book covers and middle grade!**

I Illustrate and design kids books and my vibe is cozy, fantastical, whimsical, and a little goofy. Visual storytelling is my foremost goal, so I love books that let me play with the story. I've illustrated picture books, a smattering of cover design, middle grade books, and I've also done work for magazines, advertisements and local brands

I'm primarily a children's illustrator, with experience creating client books from start to finish. With my clients, I bring their story to life by taking their manuscript from words on a page to a published book. We go through creating character designs, storyboards, color comps, final artwork, then layout design, cover design, and typesetting. I also really enjoy art directing and formatting picture books and novels, especially middle grade and YA. I have experience with KDP and Ingram spark, so I'm happy to help new authors through the publishing process.

I am also working on my own projects and stories for publication. While I love bringing stories to life, my true dream is to be a storyteller.

Illustration Expertise:
Picture book and Middle Grade

Design Expertise:
Interior book formatting for KDP and Ingram etc
Picture book through YA
(I could format your interior file for an adult book, but please don't ask me to design a cover.)

Project Wishlist

I absolutely love picture books, visual storytelling of all kinds, and writing so I spend a lot of time studying the craft, A truly good picture book writes with both words and pictures, and I do my best work when I have the space to really dig into the visual and design possibilities. That being said, here’s a list of things I would love to have in my next project:

Text that has “gaps” for the illustration to fill in
A book with an interesting design concept
Fun and unexpected story concepts
Opportunity to design weird creatures or animals
soft, whimsical, quirky, funny, magical, storybook
Nature, forests, especially with a fantasy or “weird” twist
Stories about groups of friends

Favorite picture books:

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
Where the Wild Things Are
Little Witch Hazel
A Pizza With Everything On It
Thunder pug


Comics, middle grade, animation, and other stuff:

The Moomin books and comics by Tove Jansson
Calvin and Hobbes
Be Prepared! by Vera Brosgol
The work of Hayao Miyazaki
The work of Brian Froud
Jim Henson and the Muppets
The work of James Gurney
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones
Frog and Toad by Arnold Loebel


Testimonials:

- Andrew Veach, "Red Ted and the Magical Melon Man"