In Humble Pie, illustrator Pete Oswald and author Jory John blend humor, heart, and design mastery. Abduzeedo explores how Oswald’s warm palette, simple geometry, and cinematic composition deliver both design lessons and life lessons for all ages, a visual feast on empathy, color, and storytelling.

With Humble Pie, Pete Oswald and Jory John once again serve up something we love most, a story that delivers design lessons for creatives and life lessons for everyone else. It’s clever, kind, and beautifully crafted, proof that picture books can teach composition, color theory, and emotional intelligence all at once.

Oswald’s ability to balance expressive character work with cinematic composition makes every spread feel alive, emotional, funny, and deeply intentional. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University’s animation program, Pete began his career as a visual development and character designer for film, contributing to animated favorites like The Angry Birds Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and ParaNorman. That cinematic sensibility translates seamlessly into his picture book work: composition as storytelling, lighting as emotion, and color as character.

The palette in Humble Pie leans warm and comforting, buttery yellows, pie-crust browns, and pastel pinks that feel straight from a cozy bakery kitchen. Layered with subtle gradients and paper textures, the visuals carry a tactile softness that’s become Oswald’s signature. His characters, shaped from simple geometry and micro-expressions, communicate emotion through restraint, a hallmark of mature design thinking hidden in kid-friendly form.

Each book in The Food Group series (The Bad Seed, The Good Egg, The Cool Bean, The Couch Potato, The Smart Cookie, The Big Cheese) has its own rhythm and Humble Pie continues that lineage with a quiet reminder: confidence and humility can share the same page.

We’ve long admired Pete’s work that is always expressive, sincere, and deceptively simple. He’s one of our favorite illustrators because he continues to make kindness and curiosity look cool through visual design.

3 Design Takeaways from Illustrator Pete Oswald’s Work

Emotion lives in geometry. Oswald’s characters are built from circles, ovals, and arcs, shapes that instantly communicate warmth and approachability. Simplicity, when done well, tells the truest story.
 

Texture is tone. His use of layered backgrounds, soft grain, and lighting gradients gives digital illustration a tactile humanity. His worlds feel hand-crafted, even when rendered digitally.
 

Composition as character. Framing and negative space become emotional tools, a shy pie framed small, a confident cake filling the spread. Every layout choice mirrors the inner arc of the story.

In short: Pete Oswald doesn’t just illustrate he designs empathy. And in Humble Pie, he reminds us that good design, like good storytelling is as much about listening, balance, and heart as it is about form, color, and line. Buy the book here.