Rommel Joson, 2025 De Jesus Wordless Book Prize Winner

Rommel E. Joson, instructor at the UP College of Fine Arts’ Department of Visual Communication, is the Grand Prize winner of the 2025 PBBY–De Jesus Wordless Book Prize. Rommel drew inspiration from his research on the Bangsamoro region, the Marawi Siege, and his earlier projects on conflict and resilience to shape a child-friendly yet poignant narrative without words. In this interview, he shares his process of visual storytelling, his insights on balancing craft and emotion, and his reflections on why children’s books are powerful spaces for connection and imagination.

Congratulations on your win! Can you tell us about the journey of creating your award-winning wordless picture book—where did the seed of the story come from?

I started making the story around 2 years ago for the last wordless prize competition. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the deadline back then. Several weeks before the deadline, I was working on projects that were coincidentally connected to the Bangsamoro region. I made a series of illustrations for Conflict Alert Philippines that tackled the violence in the Bagsamoro region and then a poster for a movie directed by Shing Gener entitled “Bula sa Langit” which revolved around a soldier that fought during the Marawi Siege of 2017. I was immersed in all this information so I thought, why not make my wordless book entry also about war? But of course, the challenge was to depict it in a child-friendly way.

Wordless books rely entirely on imagery to carry the narrative. How did you approach visual storytelling so that readers could follow the plot and feel the emotions without a single word?

There are techniques that allow us to follow a narrative visually. It's part of an illustrator's craft and forms the "grammar" of visual storytelling. It’s essentially guiding the reader’s eye and allowing the drawings to act like a camera for the reader. Simplifying it, I think we can group it into a couple of principles:

a) Framing and Composition

A single image can either be a close-up, a medium shot, or a wide shot. How we frame an image tells the reader what to focus on, but it also has an emotional—for example, a closer shot implies intimacy while a wider shot establishes context and space.

b) Point-of-view

A shot can also vary in terms of its position in relation to the viewer’s eyes. An image or object can be presented on the same level as the viewer or it can be positioned above or below the observer. Varying the POV not only suggests the reader’s physical and emotional position in the unfolding action.

c) Gesture and action of the characters

Having said all the above, drawing a wordless piece is a little bit like acting. The gestures and facial expressions of the characters were a big help in getting my point across.

Your works were described as both “a work of art” and “a work of heart.” How do you balance artistic style with emotional storytelling in your illustration process?

Thank you for saying so! I think this balancing act is precisely at the heart of the illustration process. I think less about “style” and more about “process”: how to draw a certain thing and what materials to use to make the process more efficient, less painful, and more physically sustainable.

What do you hope children and the adults who share this book with them; a take away after experiencing your story?

I don't have a specific "message" really. But I do want them to feel something. At the heart of it, it's really just a story of finding connection and holding on to fragile things.

For aspiring illustrators or visual storytellers in the Philippines, what advice would you give about breaking into the children’s book field, especially for those interested in creating wordless narratives?

I think anyone interested in breaking into this field should work on their craft. Widen one's visual vocabulary and influences and try going beyond the comfort zone of one's abilities. Secondly, draw genuine insight and inspiration from one's culture. Look beyond the children's books and draw inspiration from all sorts of different places.

Thank you, Rommel! Through his award-winning wordless picture book, Rommel Joson shows that silence can be just as powerful as language, inviting readers to slow down, observe, and feel. His work underscores how illustration can serve as both art and empathy, guiding young readers to discover connection and meaning in the spaces between words.