The page turn is the only tool print has
Film has cuts. Books have the page turn — a physical pause the reader controls, ideal for a reveal, a joke's punchline, or a change of tone. Where that turn falls is decided at the roughs stage, and it is decided across the whole book at once rather than spread by spread.
This is why every picture book here goes through a complete rough pass before any final art begins. Discovering in week eight that the best reveal is stranded on a verso is expensive; discovering it in a thumbnail costs an afternoon.
Pacing, palette and the shape of a book
Fourteen spreads at the same visual intensity exhausts a reader by spread six. A picture book needs rhythm — wide establishing spreads against tight intimate ones, busy against quiet, warm against cool. That rhythm is planned as a colour script covering the full book before production, in the same way an animated feature is.
The colour script is a cheap artefact that prevents an expensive problem: a finished book that is technically well drawn and somehow tiring to read.
Standard formats, handled as standard
24pp, 32pp and 40pp; portrait, landscape and square; standard trade trims. Artwork is built to your printer's template with correct bleed, gutter allowance and trim, plus a separate cover file including spine width calculated from your paper stock and extent.
If you are working to a co-edition where text will be replaced for other territories, say so at the brief stage — the artwork is then built with text-free areas planned in rather than retrofitted.
