Asha and the Spirit Bird by Jasbinder Bilan was originally published in the UK. Its enchanting story allowed the book to travel and be published in the US by Scholastic. Thanks to my Art Director, Elizabeth Parisi, I was honored to create the jacket illustration for the book.

The story revolves around Asha and Jeevan's adventure, leaving their tiny village at the foot of the Himalayas to find Asha's Father. Along the way, a spirit bird guides and protects Asha from dangers and uncertainties.

Below you can see the typography done by Elizabeth.

These first two sketches were my initial thought after I read the book. I want to create a majestic bird that represents Asha's ancestors. The notes that I got was that the bird looked too fierce which led me to simplify it in the second sketch. However, in the end Elizabeth guided suggested that we omitted the bird completely and create a silhouette of it using stars so as not to make it too literal - a good call to make.

You can also see below some other sketches that I did, how they evolve and how I tried to play around with the space in the jacket.

THANK YOU!

Th