I grew up in Hopewell, a little town just outside of Princeton, NJ. And so I was very excited when, a few years ago, I learned that the Princeton Public Library (where my mom took me as a wee lad) would begin an annual children’s book festival.

This year the festival has got an UNBELIEVABLE lineup of authors and illustrators. Seriously. It’s crazy. You should totally go. And the organizers asked ME to design the festival poster. As a “local boy,” I really did not want to disappoint. So I racked my brain trying to think of a fun, interesting concept for the poster. You can see the sketch and final art below.

The 2012 Princeton Children’s Book Festival is this coming Saturday, September 8, so I thought I’d devote my first blog post on my shiny new website to the festival, and to the art I made for the poster.

Get all of the festival details HERE!

Here is the color sketch I first made for the poster.

And here is the final poster!

Everyone seems quite pleased with what I created. Yay! In fact, the library has craftily recreated the poster art on their festival wall! It’s so amazing to see creative people transforming my art into something new. Great job, guys!

I love my job.

Full disclosure: You may have noticed that the poster art looks just like the art on my website. Well, I liked the poster art so much that I decided to use the art as the foundation for my shiny new website! I hope you don’t mind.