The Lord’s Prayer / El Padre Nuestro: Designing Faith for Young Readers
Designing for children means seeing the page a little differently. It needs to feel inviting, intuitive, and full of discovery—while making sure the design never gets in the way of the story.
The Lord’s Prayer / El Padre Nuestro, by Samuel and Joann González (Linaje Escogido), gave me the opportunity to approach those challenges through the cover design and interior layout of a bilingual children’s book centered on one of Christianity’s most familiar prayers.
This was a truly collaborative project. Samuel and Joann González developed the book, Ezekiel González created the illustrations, Ofelia Pérez served as editor, and my role was to bring the visual elements together through cover and editorial design.
Designing Around the Illustrations
Ezekiel’s illustrations established a playful, expressive visual world, so my approach was to let that personality guide the design rather than compete with it.
For the cover, I worked with the existing illustration to create a composition that immediately communicates warmth, family, and prayer. The hand-drawn character of the typography complements the illustration style and gives the title an approachable quality, while the interplay between English and Spanish makes the bilingual nature of the book part of its visual identity.
Inside, the layout was designed to give the illustrations room to tell the story while integrating both languages naturally into each spread. Scale, placement, white space, and typography were carefully balanced so young readers could move comfortably between image and text without losing the sense of play and wonder.
The result is a book where illustration and editorial design work together as one continuous experience.
From Reading to Interaction
The project also included a coloring-book edition, which required adapting the visual system to a different kind of experience.
Without color, the illustrations take on a new purpose: instead of simply viewing the world of the book, children are invited to participate in it. The cover maintains a clear visual connection to the original edition while identifying the coloring book as its own companion piece.
Working on The Lord’s Prayer / El Padre Nuestro was a rewarding reminder of what collaboration can bring to a project. Authors, illustrator, editor, and designer each contributed a different part of the experience, ultimately bringing everything together into a book created to help children engage with the Lord’s Prayer in both English and Spanish.
I’m grateful to Samuel and Joann González, Ezekiel González, and Ofelia Pérez for the opportunity to be part of this project and to contribute through design to a book meant to be shared, explored, and enjoyed by families.
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