My Country, ‘Tis of Thee – America 250 Children’s Book Design

Client: Ainsley Bloomfield (Author & Illustrator)

Services: Fine Art Digitization, Book Formatting & Layout, Pre-Press Production, Kindle KDP Conversion, Promotional Asset Design

Overview

In honor of America’s upcoming 250th anniversary, author and illustrator Ainsley Bloomfield created a gorgeous 34-page picture book bringing the lyrics of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” to life through hand-drawn ink and watercolor art. I handled the technical side of the project for Storm Gazer Designs, LLC…. taking her physical artwork and preparing it for both traditional commercial printing and digital e-readers.

The Creative & Technical Challenge

Translating 20″x8″ physical watercolor spreads into print-ready files and digital e-readers takes a lot of technical care. The text had to stay completely readable over detailed watercolor backgrounds without hiding the artwork, and the Kindle edition needed a custom layout to handle wide landscape spreads smoothly while keeping active web links working.

Solutions & Process

• Artwork Scanning & Cleanup: High-resolution scans cleaned up digitally to remove pencil guides and balance the rich watercolor colors.
• Typography & Readability: Paired historical P22 Operina Pro with clean Montserrat. I added soft gradient fades under the text so the lyrics stay legible for elementary readers without covering up the art.
• Print & KDP Setup: Formatted full-bleed PDF files for the print run with Color House Graphics, then created a custom Print Replica setup for Amazon KDP so e-readers display full spreads seamlessly.
• Promotional Assets: Converted original book spreads into printable 8.5″x11″ coloring pages in Photoshop for reader freebies and marketing downloads.

“The PDF is beautiful…. Your work is superb and I’m so proud of it.”

– Ainsley Bloomfield, Author & Illustrator

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