Serie Leamos
Procreate, InDesign
Full Illustrated Book, Character Design
Yo Sé Quién Soy is an illustrated children's book published by Sierra Leamos in collaboration with Spanish-speaking students at Georgia State University. The story follows a boy's autobiographic journey of self-discovery as he comes to terms with his sexuality as a rainbow sweater serves as the central metaphor for self-acceptance.
Color functions as the primary narrative device throughout the book. Early pages are rendered in grayscale to mirror the protagonist's uncertainty, while the sweater remains tucked away in his closet. As his journey progresses, color reappears alongside it, marking each step toward comfort and belonging. The result is a gentle but emotionally resonant story about identity and the courage it takes to embrace who you are.
Because no visual reference existed for the writer or his family, I had full creative freedom to design the characters from imagination. Naturally, I turned to the people closest to me. Knowing the author was Mexican-American like me, I found myself drawing from my own community, modeling the characters after the faces, features, and personalities I grew up around. The most fun I had in the entire process was deciding on Francisco's haircut as a child as it's something so small, but so specific to a cultural experience. Once Francisco's design was fully established, the rest of his family fell into place almost effortlessly. In the end, the characters became something deeply personal and familiar not just to me, but hopefully to the readers this book was made for.
I worked through the entire book in storyboards to figure out how to translate the author's written story into a visual sequence. This stage was where I made all the foundational decisions such as how to pace the narrative, where to place text, and how color would be distributed across each spread. It also made me much more intentional about the rhythm of the layouts themselves. I started breaking up half-page spreads with full-page illustrations at the story's most emotionally significant moments, giving those pages room to breathe and land with more impact.
