It was just over 200 years ago, in 1820, that John Keats published possibly his most famous poem of all, Ode to Autumn. With the opening line ‘Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness’, and then referencing everything from apples, to bees, to swallows, to hazels, it’s a beautiful poem, all about this bountiful season. Poignantly,…
Introducing… new children’s books from the pen of Happydesigner
As children’s book illustrators we like to think we know a thing or two about what makes a good book for youngsters. We’ve illustrated books for children of every age, from 0, to pre-school, to primary, to teens, and we have learnt a lot along the way, from working with many wonderful authors. So now…
Here comes summer and our top tens!
If you follow the Happydesigner blog you’ll know that as well as beavering away illustrating children’s books, we’re all about being in the great outdoors, and summer hols are the best time to be doing this. Football may not have come home (unless you’re Italian, that is – in which case ben fatto), but summer…
Children’s Books with a purpose!
Writing a Children’s book? What’s the point… Children’s books have changed enormously over the past several decades. From Enid Blyton’s Famous Five (drinking lashings of ginger beer), to Harry Potter (quaffing lashings of butterbeer, come to think of it), children’s literature has gone through many iterations. Jacqueline Wilson’s Tracy Beaker lives in a children’s home…
A new look and new website for Happydesigner
If you’re new to Happydesigner, then hello, welcome, and we hope you like the look! If you’re one of our lovely customers or regular site visitors, we hope you’ve noticed the changes and found them fun, more informative, and helpful. We’ve not ‘reinvented the wheel’ because we liked lots of the features of our old…
Making a career from a love of drawing
Meet children’s book illustrator extraordinaire, Happydesigner’s Sarah-Leigh Wills – lover of the great outdoors, who draws for a hobby as well as for a living, and who is probably named after a dessert! When did you start drawing and what was the first drawing you ever did? That’s a hard one. I have been drawing…
We’ve literally got a spring in our step to welcome the new season!
Spring has sprung! We’ve just had a wonderful weekend chez Happydesigner, blessed with glorious sunshine, with the days starting frosty, and the nights clear and moonlit. Spring sunshine, frosty mornings, moonlit nights – sounds like the setting for the opening of a novel! But we digress… Spring has sprung. Plants are beginning to bud, snowdrops…
Not rock, paper, scissors but… trees, paper, books!
Trees. There’s nothing Marmite about trees. We’ve not come across a single person who doesn’t love trees. Even those who are pretty much wedded to being city dwellers love the fact that there are parks and green places dotted around, all with trees in them. We have an additional reason to love trees at Happydesigner….
Once I Wrote a Book About Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (or OMD as my husband calls them!)
I Once Wrote a Book About Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark!
