Javier Gimenez Ratti – Designer

Hi! I'm Javi from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I've been drawing children's books for the last 10 years and I plan to keep on doing it for the next 40 or until I lose my hand in the war against the machines, whatever comes first.

I like painting colorful, dynamic scenes and making stories and characters pop from the page. Every book I'm working on is my favorite work to date since I'm always getting better and pushing myself to deliver the best possible artwork. I'm always looking forward to my next project because I know it's going to be my best. Hopefully, I'll be my best in your book.

Feedback and communication is important, and I usually follow a series of steps in the process to allow the authors to have input in every step of my creative process:

- First comes a storyboard, with simple but clear compositions for each of the illustrations to get the flow of the book right.
- Then comes the final sketch illustrations where I will sketch every element and character that will appear in the final version.
- Then comes the final color version that I will work on, although I sometimes also deliver a rough version of the color palette on each image in case you want any changes before I finish everything up.

There is an image in my portfolio that shows an example of this process, be sure to check it out along with the rest of the gallery.

I hope you really like what you see.

Javi.