A Wonderland Of Words

Hey there, creative souls!

Welcome back to a new blog. Today, I’ll be sharing the backstory behind a sample work I created for a client—but it got rejected.

So, while working, I was asked to make a sample for a children's book aimed at 4-6-year-olds. The job was to create something similar to Usborne Publishing, with activity pages for kids. The theme was already decided: learning alphabets. With this information, I started exploring ideas online.

This project was something new for me because, before this, I had mostly worked on executing client ideas. But this time, I had to come up with something on my own. While doing R&D (Research and Development), I looked through books by Usborne Publishing, as I was told they wanted something similar. While searching, I came across an activity book called Jungle Play Pad (Usborne Publishing). I found it very interesting, so I decided to create something like this.

The Challenge

The real problem started when they gave me an instruction to make the alphabets in a specific shape according to the beach theme. This was confusing because it was difficult to make the letters visually appealing for kids while fitting them into the given theme.

Since I found it difficult, I proposed my own idea to them. They agreed, but also asked me to make two versions: one as per their instructions and one based on my idea. First thought that came to my mind was "Mena apna kaam bada diya" That meant I increased my own workload, but I started working on both.

After completing them, I showed the samples to the client. They liked my idea better because the other one looked congested. Seeing this, they asked for one more sample for another page to check if it was possible to create different themed pages.

The Final Hurdle

Now, the challenge was to make this second page look different from the first one while still feeling like part of the same book. As I was working on it, they gave me some specific instructions, which actually made my work easier. Instead of creating something completely new, they just wanted an activity where kids had to color the vowels and consonants differently.

However, when they told me the number of pages and the time limit for both the illustrations and DTP work, I realized it wasn’t possible for me to handle alone. Since I had no team to assist me, I told them I couldn’t take up the project. So, in the end, my idea got rejected, and the approved work was the one I didn’t really enjoy working on, but I had to complete it due to the time limit.

Lessons Learned

Even though this project didn’t go as planned, I learned a lot:

✅ Time management is super important.

✅ Deadlines can change how much creative freedom you get.

✅ Sometimes, you have to balance creativity with client expectations.

Not every project turns out the way we want, but every experience helps us grow. Thanks for reading, and until next time—keep creating, keep exploring! 

Final Output