ABSTRACT
Recently, people have come up to me and congratulated me on how well I illustrated Bitter Bananas (Olaleye, 1994), illustrated by Ed Young. I want to set something straight right now. I am not an illustrator. I am not an artist. I am not a writer. What I am, as a designer, is a facilitator. I work directly with the illustrator. I am much like a cinematography film editor. I work with artists to help them pace their books. First, I read a story “inside and out.” I get to know the background. I work with the artist in terms of getting the story to fit just right into those 32 pages—and have it flow just right, so that there are not awkward jumps from one scene to another.
