Children's Book
/
Illustration
/
Art Direction
/ About the project
As a woman growing up in a country with such a narrow definition of what it means to be a woman, I have always questioned the idea that all women are “naturally” nurturing and want children. Motherhood has long been tied to womanhood and, in many ways, is still treated as something that defines it. While motherhood can be a beautiful thing, women are so much more than that. Yet anything that exists outside of this expectation is often framed as unnatural, dangerous, or even monstrous – witchy, even.
In fairy tales, we rarely see the witch – the embodiment of everything feared or deemed undesirable in a woman – coexist with a maternal identity. What does that say about the narrow understanding of femininity that we pass on to children?
In an attempt to explore the complexities of motherhood, I created a children’s pop-up book that illustrates the maternal pressures and anxieties placed on contemporary women, while allowing children to see beyond the typical witch found in traditional fairy tales.
/ Credits
Part of UAL MADAD program
Advisors: Jordan Jon Hodgson, Louise Healy, Lucy Sanderson and Barney Kass
Art Direction: Madeline Nguyen
Design & Illustration: Madeline Nguyen
/ Year
2026
/ design concept
As part of this project, I conducted a survey to explore how women think about both the witch archetype and motherhood. Although participants came from different cultural backgrounds, many shared similar experiences. They spoke about the pressure to marry and have children, the idea of an “expiry date” tied to women’s fertility and value, and modern stereotypes that echo the historical witch, such as the spinster, the grumpy cat lady, the “rich auntie”, the career woman, and the so-called “woke feminist”. It made me realize that while the image of the witch has changed, the judgments surrounding women who reject traditional expectations have remained surprisingly similar.
These insights became the starting point for my character design. I wanted to create a figure that still carried traces of the witch without fitting neatly into the usual categories. The result is a vaguely “ugly” creature with sharp, pointy hair and an awkward appearance that reflects anxiety, defensiveness, and the feeling of not quite belonging. Through the survey and research on children's picturebooks, I realized that telling a different story about witches meant moving away from the binary thinking of traditional fairy tales. Instead, I wanted to create a character that exists somewhere in between – abstract, ambiguous, and open to interpretation.
/ applications
With the book following the Jacob’s ladder format, there is no single beginning or ending, and no final destination for our character. There is only a journey somewhere within the book, waiting for the reader to piece it together. Rather than simply retelling a fairy tale, I wanted children to explore, make connections, and build their own understanding of the story. Children are free to roam around the story and discover the parts that speak to them most.
/ Behind the scenes
What's Next?