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POLARIS’ WORLD

2025

STORYBOARDING & ILLUSTRATIVE DESIGN

As early readers rely on visuals to navigate story structure, emotion, and pacing, illustration becomes a critical usability tool. Polaris Finds His Family was designed as a visual-first narrative, using intentional storyboarding to guide attention, reduce cognitive load, and support emotional comprehension.

Beyond the book itself, UX principles informed accessibility-minded storytelling, cohesive branding across merchandise, and modular components designed for a future ebook experience: positioning the story as a flexible, inclusive system rather than a single artifact.

THE PROBLEM

Birdhouse Publishing is collaborating with Polaris, a deaf and blind dog with a loyal Instagram following, to create a children’s story that builds disability awareness and emotional maturity for young readers in the age of social media and inauthentic content. They need a visual designer to not only create the art for the picture book, but to also create a scalable brand ecosystem that allows the product to be appealing to educators, pediatric therapists, and parents who value thoughtful, emotionally safe stories.

Our goal is to create a scalable brand story that tells a story of diversity, accessibility, love, and deeper thinking. 

DISCOVER

AUDIENCE​

  • Primary: Children ages 6 - 11

  • Secondary: Parents, Teachers/Educators, Pediatric Therapists

REQUIREMENTS

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  1. “Scent Clouds” convey character essence rather than physical appearance.

  2. Designs will support seasonal change and character aging/development.

  3. Two bird characters anchor the story’s humor.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES​

  • Organic textures, gentle contrast, and hand-drawn linework  reduce cognitive load, specifically in children, making it easier to interpret expressions, body language, and narrative cues. The result is a watercolor/colored pencil style with soft colors, ​ similar to art by Maud Bihan or 

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​​       Anastasia Wessex.

  • This style is widely perceived as warmer, more trustworthy, and more timeless, positioning the book as an emotional keepsake.

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SUCCESS METRICS​

  • Children are able to understand the emotions and follow the story purely on visuals alone.

  • Characters, style, and branding are able to be seamlessly extended to merchandise, digital experiences, and other touchpoints.

DEFINE

As a team we asked: How can we turn pages of text into beautiful illustrations?
As an individual, I asked: How can we tell a the story without saying anything at all?

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I treated the storyboarding process as a series of low-to-mid fidelity prototypes to refine the narrative's 'user flow.'

LOFI CONTENT AUDITING

  • I started by physically cutting and pasting the manuscript with the author. This allowed us to treat the text as moveable data points, ensuring the story’s 'Information Architecture' was sound before any drawing began.

WIREFRAMING/STORYBOARDING

  • I moved into rough, high-contrast storyboards to test visual weight. My focus here was on the visual hierarchy: ensuring the eye landed on the emotional core of each page without distraction.

OPTIMIZING FLOW

  • During this phase, I identified a 'friction point': the text density was too high for the target age group. To reduce cognitive load and improve the pacing, I re-architected the book’s structure, expanding it from 17 to 21 spreads. This 'breathing room' ensured the emotional beats had space to land, preventing the reader from feeling overwhelmed, however it remained in the "sweet spot" of length for a children's book to maintain focus!

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This also helped put more emotional weight on certain scenes, giving the story time to breathe.

FINAL CONCEPT STORYBOARD

Checking in with the authors every day was essential to ensuring that their message translated across a new flow, reduced wordings, and rich visuals.

DESIGN

CONCEPT TO CREATION

  • Every illustration and web component began as a sketch built around the story moment and the user’s experience.

  • I developed key-frame concept art, then refined each scene for clarity and consistency  before translating them into final pages and branding components.

DESIGN SYSTEM 

  • I developed a design kit for the book's personal branding by creating reusable character models, pattern tiles, and master asset sheets. I developed a scalable Design System to ensure visual consistency and brand recognition across multiple touchpoints (mobile, web, and physical print).

  • Selected a high-contrast palette and legible typography to support accessibility for early readers.

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Sketch

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Concept

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Final

ACCESSIBILITY 

  • Ensuring that alt text is established and is up to WCAG/ADA standards.

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VALIDATE

We tested the final book by sharing a PDF with our target audience and asking educators and parents to read it with a class or family. Afterward, we conducted short interviews to evaluate whether the story was emotionally mature, understood by children, educator friendly, and promotes accessibility and disability awareness. Here are some standout quotes:

"I think there is a place for this in the adoption world--meaning child adoption.  It addresses special needs adoption, adoption of kids who have to wait a while to find a family, and embracing the diversity of adoptive families who could be a good fit for waiting children."

Karey Scheyd, MA, LPC

Owner & Psychotherapist
Karey Scheyd Counseling, PLLC

“I believe Polaris Finds His Family will be a wonderful resource for teachers, doctors, therapists, and anyone working to nurture emotional intelligence in children. [...] It’s also an excellent addition to SEL (social and emotional learning) curricula in schools.”

Toby Hays, MD


Adjunct Clinical Instructor
Stanford University School of Medicine

"It did a really good job at describing things as if I couldn't see or hear [...] I could see their little anticipation for a happy ending. A children's page turner! [My son] asked to read it again this morning and he liked that a bee cared for the dog. I’m looking forward to adding a hard copy to our little library."

Zachary Cain

Parent of two children, ages 5 and 7

"Wow, I read it on my Braille Sense: It was really good, made me cry! My braille machine and computer had no issue reading the text and alt text from the PDF."
 

Desiree Simeone

Sr Accessibility Specialist for Blindness Technologies

DELIVER

IMPACT

  • Achieved #1 New Release in three different children’s book categories on Amazon from October 15th to October 17th

  • Sold 85 copies on Amazon within the first three days of launch

  • Raised $300+ for local Animal Rescue (AJK Family Rescue, Austin TX)

  • Received a foreword from Stanford pediatrician, Toby Hays, and several other endorsements from child therapists, teachers, and pediatricians

  • Available in Round Rock Public Libraries, Hutto Public Libraries, local book stores and more to come!

© 2026 NATASHA STURDEVANT

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