Laura Moyer may be an artist, but she's also a storyteller, and now her work is in mailboxes across the country. Laura, who lives in Manheim, created the artwork that appears on the cover and throughout the Amazon Kids Gift Book, a national catalog mailed to customers earlier this month.

As Laura explained, the artwork was created specifically for the Amazon book, but it followed some preset guidelines.

"I worked collaboratively with a large team of people to create the characters - appearance, personality traits," she said. "The set of characters has been used for the toy book every year for four or five years, and each year, they have a new illustrator create the characters in their style. So we were building on existing characters, but creating them in my own visual style on their newest story/adventure."

The characters, which include forest friends such as a fox, a bear and an owl, appear throughout the book in a story and activities such as coloring pages, hide-and-seek games and word searches. An "about the illustrator" profile of Laura appears on the last page of the 50-page toy catalog.

Laura was selected for the project last fall after her agency, Closer&Closer, secured her the work. She began working on the illustrations in January.

"It was a collaborative project between myself, a design studio called Hybrid Design based in San Francisco and the Amazon toy book team," Laura said.

She worked on the project from January until July.

Laura grew up in Cedar Run, N.J., and graduated from Philadelphia University (now Thomas Jefferson University) with a degree in graphic design communication in 2013. She was employed full time as a graphic designer in Harrisburg and then Lancaster, where she worked on a few illustration projects and hoped to pursue that type of work full time.

After her second child was born in 2017, Laura began freelance graphic design work and took online illustration classes.

"I really just made an Instagram page for my illustration work and would share whatever I was working on in my classes or for fun, and it took off from there," she explained.

Laura said the two children she shares with her husband, Jarryd - Bryce, age 9, and Lyla, age 7 - have enjoyed following the characters' story throughout the toy book.

"The book has stickers in it, and they've seen their friends at school with the stickers on their water bottles," Laura said. "They think it's pretty cool."

Laura describes her style as reminiscent of mid-century illustrators. "I draw a lot of inspiration from that time period," she shared. "I love using geometric shapes as the foundation of my work and then layering in details, shadows and texture to bring it to life. I previously worked as a graphic designer, so making things feel neat and well-designed, while still having plenty of details and personality, is really important to me."

Laura, who creates projects under the name Laura C. Moyer, has provided illustrations for everything from board games to greeting cards, maps and fabric. She said she's always loved making art.

"I honestly just feel like it is what I am meant to do. I love being an illustrator when it makes others feel happy or if it helps people learn (and) makes learning fun," she commented. "I love nonfiction illustration and would love to do more work in that space, such as nonfiction kids' books. However, after drawing these cute characters for Amazon, I now have lots of ideas for more characters!"

For more information on Laura's work, visit http://www.lauracmoyer.com or search for "Laura C. Moyer" on Instagram.