Fall 2024/Winter 2025

Goal: Transform Geo Rutherford’s debut illustrated middle-grade nonfiction book, Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes that Dot Our Planet, into a coloring book. The level of detail captured in the line-work had to be appealing to a wide audience, age and skillset wise.

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Work Completed:

• Converted a mix of Geo’s full color paintings and pencil drawings into digital line-work illustrations.

• Reimagined and digitally painted the front and back covers in Adobe Fresco in collaboration with Geo.

• Set up the initial book file - all 96 pages - to ensure the artwork and text fit. This file was updated with the vector art as it was completed. Handed it off to the Abrams designers to tweak and finalize on their end.

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Lessons Learned:

• Coloring books require a different mindset than a lot of traditional art styles. Example: All [major/important] lines need to be completely closed so people have an obvious space to fill in when coloring.

• Coloring books should primary be made up of illustrations that have borders vs illustrations that take up the whole page and in turn, go into the center fold (unless you’re using lay flat pages, but those raise costs significantly).

• Super important things should not be on the backside of a coloring page, as some materials will bleed through and make the backside unusable.

• Overall: Take advice from people who use a given product regularly and determine a process that will allow you to remain consistent, especially with something as big as a 96 page book.