Gaia has a style that is immediately recognizable, clean, colorful and generous in forms. Gaia Stella’s playful and vibrant illustrations always start with pencil sketches. She then makes her own rubber stamps, scans the stamped and hand drawings, and colors the creations digitally.

When she creates children’s books, she thinks mainly of the memories she keeps of her childhood and of her niece, Anita.

In 2015, she began her collaboration with helium with the album Toutes les choses avec lequelles… (2015) , then she designs an all-cardboard puzzle. At the market, I choose… (2017) and You are the architect Tadao Ando, a game book with stcikers (2021).

Gaia Stella is an award-winning illustrator and author. She has authored and illustrated picture books and novelty books for Italian and international publishers, including hélium, La Joie de Lire, De La Martinière Jeunesse, Mondadori, Einaudi. She has done editorial illustrations for clients such as The New York Times, Vogue Bambini, & The Boston Globe. Gaia’s colorful and geometric imagery is inspired by a variet of (sometimes unexpected) sources: architecture by Mies an De Rohe, a chair designed by Gio Ponti, photos by René Maltête, illustrations by Vladimir Lebedev, short stories by Gianni Rodari, and the packaging of Asian food. She lives and works in Milan, Italy.