Lucky Boots & Pink Elephants: Dionna Hayden's Career as an Author-Illustrator and Visual Architect

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Photo courtesy of Dionna Hayden

Dionna Hayden

Dionna Hayden

Before Dionna Hayden became a visual designer, children’s book author-illustrator and youth educator, she was a young girl growing up in a multigenerational home in Milwaukee’s “53206 neighborhood,” inheriting creative and altruistic passions from the woman who raised her. 

She was captivated by her grandmother’s love of literature. “All of her books were so thick,” Hayden remembers. “I would watch her take one down from her collection, patiently read through the whole thing and put it back on the shelf. She just didn’t stop reading.” 

She was fascinated with the illustrations and storylines in the children’s books her mother read to her at bedtime. “We didn’t have a whole lot of money, but she would always buy books for us,” Hayden recalls. “By the time I was six, I knew I wanted to illustrate and write books.”

She was inspired by her aunt, whom she admired for her confidence and commitment to uplifting young people. “When she was a teenager herself, she would take care of my mom. When my sister and I came along, she continued that love and support, especially when it came to my art,” she reflects. “I remember admiring how she took care of herself. She had locs all the way down to her back, and then one day just cut them off and rocked this short cut. I remember thinking she was a goddess.” 

Now 44, Hayden is the owner and sole creative behind Pink Elephant Design, a company that builds brands and visual identities. She is also the founder of Lucky Boots (named after her nurturing aunt, Lucky, and book-loving grandmother, Boots), a children's book imprint where she writes and illustrates a book series titled “The Cookie-Flower Rock Kids.” In addition, she is the Program and Partnerships Manager at ArtWorks for Milwaukee, where she mentors Milwaukee’s youth through art-focused internships that build career skills for their futures. 

“My interest in the arts, my personality, my self-confidence came from my access to multiple generations of women. It’s in my DNA,” Hayden says. “But I’ve also always known what I wanted out of life. I had an inner-knowing.”  

Lucky Boots & The Cookie-Flower Rock Kids 

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Photo courtesy of Dionna Hayden

'Devin's Dress' by Dionna Hayden

'Devin's Dress' by Dionna Hayden

Hayden remembers being six when she realized Black characters weren’t present in many of the children’s books her mother read to her. 

But one book stuck out: Daddy is a Monster … Sometimes by author-illustrator John Steptoe. “Those illustrations showed people of color, and that is a staple memory,” she says. 

Those memories, she explains, helped spark her journey towards launching Lucky Boots in 2014. She did it at home, while raising her three kids. Under the imprint, less than a year later, she published the first Cookie-Flower Rock Kids book, Moving Day. In 2017, came the second book, Big Bad Bully. 

The series follows three young Black siblings—Kyla, Devin and Kris-Alex—as they navigate new challenges and life lessons. Inspired in part by her own children, Hayden crafted each sibling with a distinct personality: Kyla is “the dreamer,” Devin “the thinker” and Kris-Alex “the doer.”

“I wanted to create characters that I didn't see growing up,” Hayden says. “But also, my kids were these interesting people. They are all so different in personality.”

Hayden says the siblings' contrasting personalities reflect many real-life households, helping young readers find someone they identify with. The differences also create opportunities to explore how children approach lessons in varied ways. 

“[The characters’ differences] allow me to write storylines that ask, ‘How do different kids experience situations? How do they handle things when they're all hit with the same subject?” she says. 

Hayden sums up each book’s theme in a simple three-word lesson: “Moving Day teaches change is good. Big Bad Bully teaches different is cool.” These themes, she says, are based on circumstances she struggled with as a kid (such as loss, teasing and transition) and what she observed her own children going through.   

Lucky Boots’ most recent release was Devin’s Dress in 2018, illustrated by Hayden but written by her daughter when she was in elementary school. “I want to treat my children the way my mother treated me and my sister. She gave us agency,” says Hayden. “So, when I presented the idea of publishing ‘Devin’s Dress’ [to my daughter], I pitched it as if I were talking to a client. I told her, ‘This is really good. It could sell and could help other children.’

“I want my children to feel that they have a seat at the table,” she continues. “So by the time she was 11 and ready to publish it, I began asking her questions that would help bring her story's vision to life—such as, ‘What color palette do you want? What do you want this to feel like? How do you want your story to be conveyed?’”

Hayden is currently working on the third Cookie-Flower Rock Kids book, titled Crabby Birthday. She says the lesson “leans towards celebrating others.” She does not share a release date but says it is storyboarded. Under Lucky Boots, she also plans to release Ghetto Jamal, a book for older youth that explores implicit bias and is written by her husband, Kyle A. Hayden. 

Pink Elephant Design & Beyond

While Lucky Boots is rooted in Hayden's personal life, Pink Elephant Design is rooted in the spaces and people that shape Milwaukee. Her branding and design work—which she calls visual architecture—can be found throughout the city, from Journey House to Niche Book Bar. She is currently working with her brother, Savvy Breaux, to build a brand around his artwork. 

“I’m not just a graphic designer,” she says. “It’s beyond that. I take a strategic approach to building visuals that create the world we are trying to service.” 

Ever the ambitionist, Hayden is also in the process of remodeling Pink Elephant Design to break into the entertainment space. Turning Cookie-Flower Rock Kids into an animated kids’ program and designing prop and set graphics for TV and film are some of the goals she shares. 

“I want to be one of the people working visually behind the scenes that make TV and movie worlds feel real,” she says. “The identity around a candy bar wrapper or restaurant menu in a movie is not real, but someone made it feel real. That’s what I want to do. Ultimately though, I want to sit at the table as an executive producer,” she concludes with a confident smile. 

Reporter’s Note

I was first introduced to Dionna Hayden through her artwork, hanging in a gallery at The Center for Black Excellence and Culture in Madison. Intrigued, I looked her up and discovered that she is much more than an exhibiting artist—she wears so many creative hats! So, when I sat down to speak with her for this story, I expected to be impressed.

What I did not expect, however, was to engage in a nearly two-hour conversation where Dionna centered her deep reverence for the people who surround her. She shared many family memories, describing how her love of art, literature and entertainment came from them. No matter where our conversation turned, or how many personal questions I asked, a throughline of celebration for her children, her husband, her brother, and the women who raised her guided us. 

I include this to say, as much as this piece celebrates Dionna and her work, it also celebrates them. Those who make Dionna the woman, mother, sister, wife she is—those whom she pours into because they pour into her.