Classic
Watercolour and gouache, like a picture book from childhood.
A childhood in picture books
Coming soon · not on the App Store yet
Inside the Gruvi app sits a shelf of books that exist only once. Your child as the hero, your voice telling the story. No reading skills needed, no help needed — one tap is enough. You made these books here in the Studio, from a few photos and ten minutes of time.
No blank page, no writer’s block. You answer a few questions — the atelier does the rest.
Name, age, what they look like, where you live, what they love right now. Six questions, then you already see the first drawing.
The things you have lived through become ready-made stories, one tap away. Or tell your own, if you already have one in mind.
Page by page. The text is only a suggestion — feel free to tell it your own way. Redo any single page until it feels right, and take turns if you like.
One tap, and the book appears in your child’s Gruvi app. No cables, no files, no explaining.
This is what sets it apart from everything else out there. Your child is drawn once — and then looks exactly the same in every book. The same curls, the same eyes. That goes for the dog too, for Mum and Dad, for Grandma and Grandpa.
Swim trunks at the pool, a snowsuit on the slopes. It stays the same child — they simply get dressed for whatever the story asks.
All three feel handmade, calm and warm. You choose once — the book stays in it.
Watercolour and gouache, like a picture book from childhood.
Clear lines and warm colours, in the style of European albums.
Laid from torn paper, with visible fibre edges.
A book is only the beginning. After that you can furnish the places yourself: pick a backdrop, put things on it, move them around until it feels right. Everything in there is painted by hand, none of it bought in from a stock library.
painted pieces, ready from day one.
objects across twenty categories, from animals to toys to furniture.
backdrops: a child’s room, a farm, Grandma’s parlour, a station, an enchanted wood.
Ten of 281 objects. Each one painted, not one of them bought.
A façade, with rooms behind it. From the second room onwards it becomes a walkthrough: your child taps from room to room, the way you move through a doll’s house. Grandma’s flat, your own home, the nursery.
Every place carries its own light and weather, and with it a quiet soundscape: rain on the window, birds in the garden, the crackle of an evening fire. It always falls silent the moment someone reads aloud. The voice comes first.
Dad is away on a trip — and still reads the bedtime story.
That is why Gruvi Atelier exists. You record the book yourself, page by page, with the text shown large like a teleprompter. Stumbled? Redo that one page — the rest stays.
From then on, your voice belongs to the book. Even when you are travelling, working shifts, or your child is at the other parent’s this week.
It is always your real voice, untouched. No computer voice, no voice clone, no filter. And you can take turns: Mum reads the first pages, Dad the rest, Grandma the ending.
The text is only a suggestion. If you prefer, tell the story in your own words — the way stories are told at the edge of a bed.
Not every page has to be your voice. Each page comes with an invitation link. Whoever receives it records that page right in the browser: no app, no account, no password. It works at the kitchen table just as well as 600 kilometres away.
The recording does not go straight into the book. You listen to it first and decide whether it belongs there. Not quite right? Simply send the link again.
1. On a page, you tap “invite the family”.
2. Grandma gets a link, by message or email.
3. She opens it, sees the page, reads it aloud.
4. The recording appears on your side. Listen, accept, done.
Before a book goes to the children’s room, the atelier reads it over and proposes an age band, with a short reason: how long the sentences run, how much happens on a page, how the story ends.
The decision is yours. You know your child, we only know the text.
So that no two books sound alike, every text is written in one of four narrative styles. They are drawn from the craft of award-winning picture books, each with its own rules for sentence length, repetition and endings. The reading voice is always yours.
The quiet one for bedtime. A recurring good-night line, and an ending that grows softer instead of louder.
For giggling. The punchline always lands after the page turn, with a call your child will join in on the second read.
For every first time. First the fear is allowed to show — then your child takes the decisive step themselves.
For small discoveries. One detail per page, and an ending that lingers instead of explaining.
Two real screens from the app, not mockups: the shop entrance with your workbenches, and the scene builder with its world drawers, each wearing a hand-painted medallion.
You build the whole book before anything costs a cent. You only pay when it is ready for the children’s room. No subscription. We did the maths and dropped the idea: a monthly fee does not suit something you keep. What you buy is yours, and credit never expires. The first book is on us.
Planned prices. What counts is what the App Store shows once the atelier is there.
In your own voice. Yours to keep, forever.
Credit never expires. Use it whenever you need it.
For families that read a lot. Makes a lovely gift, too.
Each photo is processed exactly once, then never again. It is sent to our own service, looked at, and put into words — say: a boy, four years old, blond curls, green knitted jumper. From then on, only that description does the work. The photo itself never reaches the service that paints the pictures.
It is not stored anywhere. Once described, it is gone — and none of it is ever used to train models.
A photo is optional, by the way. You can simply describe your child instead — then no image leaves your device at all.
This page is a preview. The atelier is not on the App Store yet, it is being tested on devices right now. Every picture here is real output from the atelier, no concept art and no mock-ups.
Write to us and we will let you know the moment you can make your first book.
The children’s app is already out. That is where the shelf with your books will live.