Guy Parker-Rees

My dad illustrates children’s books, and his website had been sitting untouched for a long time.

The old one caught his playfulness. It was bold and loud and looked like him, so the job was to keep that and give it somewhere better to live.

Having a parent as a client means you already know the answers to most of what you’d spend a discovery phase asking. I knew his work, his handwriting, and how he talks about his books, so I could design straight from that.

There were no guidelines and no deadline, so I could push the character further than a normal client project allows.

It’s still my favourite thing I’ve built, mostly because I got to spend time on details nobody was going to invoice me for.

I’ll leave you with some of my favourite details.

The navigation is his own handwriting.

The illustrations fan in on load.

You can flick through the whole catalogue.

A few interactions hidden in the illustrations.