directory of children's illustration

Contact Information

First Name

Karen

Last Name

Craig

City

Woodstock

State

NY

Country

United States

Province/Region

North East

Zip/Postal Code

12498

personal web address

http://www.karencraigART.com/

type of art work

Preschool, graphic, bold, colorful, digital, cut paper, educational, cute, whimsical, cartoon, kindergarten, elementary, editorial, fun, happy, cute, family, decorative, nature, animals

Published Works

Magic Color Change Book Series - Playmore Books, Play Pockets - Innovative Kids, Blue's 12 Days of Christmas - Simon & Schuster, Various Blue's Clues 8x8 Books - Simon & Schuster, Various Blue's Clues Ready-to-Read Books - Simon & Schuster, Various Blue's Clues Sound Effect Books - Publications International

Bio

Karen Craig has been designing and illustrating for children for over fifteen years.

Her first job was to conceptualize, design and illustrate kids' educational materials for Upstart, now owned by the Highsmith Company.

This led her to a job with Nickelodeon where she was a senior designer for seven years, learning the many facets of working within the realm of licensed brands, products and properties.

While at Nick, Karen worked as senior concept designer on various liaisons with Nickelodeon branding partners, such as Kraft Foods, Ford Motors and FAO Schwarz. She was also closely involved with the Nick Jr., property, "Blue's Clues." Her Blue's Clues Style Guide won a Broadcast Design Award gold medal. She has also illustrated over 30 Blue's Clues licensed books since 1998.

Some of Karen's surface pattern design work can be found on various Nickelodeon products such as The Fairly Odd Parents, Jimmy Neutron, Blue's Room and The Rugrats packaging. She has also created pattern art for licensed properties such as Olivia (the Pig) for Chorion-Silver Lining and Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies, for National Geographic Kids.

Karen enjoys the field of book arts and creates "artist books" of all kinds. Karen's cloth book concept "Play Pockets" was published by Innovative KIDS in 2006.

Karen is a big fan of pop-ups. The Museum of Modern Art recently published two of her pop-up card designs for their 2007 and 2008 Holiday lines. One of these designs was recently selected as a Louie Award finalist by the National Greeting Card Association.

Karen is currently developing several picture book and soft book ideas, although she has yet to seek out a publisher.

Member SCBWI
BFA Toy Design, The Fashion Institute of Technology