By Tasnim Oyshi
Staff Writer
U-lab room 206 of AIMM was packed with students, who gathered for Ravenna Gemignami’s return to campus after her graduation in 2024. The former IMM student gave a presentation on her first book, “Lodi and Parmar’s Sweet Treat,” at the Department of Design and Creative Technology’s DCTea event on April 16.
The children’s book follows the two protagonists in their attempt to bake a treat for an upcoming harvest celebration, receiving help from friends along the way. Having written, illustrated and published the book by herself, Gemignami explained her process to the attendees and how she got started after finishing college.
Starting from her first step, Gemignami shared that her initial ideas came from a mentorship class she took with illustrator and author Prescott Hill. There, she began creating the characters of Lodi and Parmar with inspiration coming from her friends and the world around her, including the Apple logo, cartoons like “Chowder” and books like the “Little Critter” series.
Gemignami had known from the start that she wanted the setting to be early fall and for there to be a focus on apples. The lesson she wanted to share in the final product was always clear to her: “It’s okay to ask for help.”
Spending her days working at her dad’s company, Gemignami set the night aside to develop her story and illustrations. She emphasized the importance of getting a little bit done everyday. Although she would try to do one illustration a day, some of them would take her a week.
On the more technical side, Gemignami went over her selection of page size, fonts, brush sizes, the rendering process and more. She suggested using Nomad Sculpt to those illustrating on iPads as it was particularly helpful for her.
She also described how title pages, copyright pages and dedications worked. As shown on the first few pages, Gemignami dedicated the book to her grandmother who always told her, “Many hands make light work.” This would essentially become the core message of “Lodi and Parmar’s Sweet Treat.”
During her editing process, Gemignami sent the book out to some friends, many of whom she had based her characters on. At first, she tried to reach out to agents, but that didn’t work out. Agents prioritize authors having a portfolio of work as opposed to the singular book Gemignami had so far.
Thus, Gemignami decided she would publish the work herself. She went into depth about what comes after the book is finished for self-publishers. There are ISBN and bar codes to buy, copies to order, shipping to select, marketing to set up; all of which are decisions that involve spending money.
When it comes to earning that money back and making a profit, Gemignami spoke about selling at craft shows. She advised students to always have a friend or family member with them when doing this so they can sign while their partner speaks to customers.
In addition, she reached out to Milan’s Children’s Gift Market and wants to connect with more indie bookstores that would be interested in selling her book. “Lodi and Parmer’s Sweet Treat” is also available for purchase online as an e-book.
The event ended with a Q&A session, in which she discussed a potential continuation to the book, her favorite illustration and potential hopes to create a kids show. Gemignami attributed her skills in design and storytelling to the College and spoke on how much she learned.
“It really means a lot to come back to my alma mater and share my experience post-grad, using all the tools I learned at TCNJ to create this children’s book,” said Gemignami after the presentation. “A lot of the people that I met throughout my time here were major influences on me. I’m really glad they were all able to help.”
