ABOUT

Ness LOVES designing children’s books!

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Ness is an award-winning Art Director and designer who works on picture books and fiction, from young fiction to YA and also poetry.

 

She has worked for many major national and international publishers. Her wide-ranging accomplishments in practical design with qualifications in design history serve as a solid foundation for her work. She is known for her encouraging, straightforward and collaborative approach with illustrators and students. Whatever stage you are at in your writing or illustration career, Ness can help you move your project forwards.

 

Some of Ness’s design skills are:

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Project management:

• Taking a book from concept to printed object through collaboration, scheduling and working through all design decisions required

 

Cover design:

• Taking the inside illustrations of a picture book and creating picture book cover ideas

• Reading a fiction synopsis and finding the right illustrator and designing a striking look for the cover

• Typographical decision making

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Layouts:

• Working with text and image and laying out the insides of a book

• Thinking about composition, balance, scale and, of course, the page turn

• Collaborating with an illustrator through rough stage to finished artwork

 

Ness has been a judge for the prestigious Bologna Ragazzi Award, Bologna Book Fair, and recently for the CBNN Illustration Prize 2026.

 

Ness has taught at several Universities, including Goldsmiths, ULAN and Brighton and ran the Cambridge School of Art Summer School 2017-2022. She gives lectures and tutorials on children’s book illustration, design, publishing - these are online and in person. She is available for talks and brings a breadth of experience, industry knowledge and personal anecdote to her speaking.

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Ness is a co-founder of Orange Beak Studio the home of children’s book tutorials, events and workshops.

 

If you want to work with her then get in touch! ​
nesswood@mac.com

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