Naomi Rosenblatt, born in Pittsburgh, went to public school in New York, a place she says “taught me how alive a place can be.” Little wonder that her excitement about being a New Yorker is registered by students in her design classes at New York University’s Center for Publishing.

Only a city like New York, with its incredible visual resources and wide range of publishing venues could continually fuel my career and help me realize my precious, persistent childhood dream of writing and illustrating books. I’ve lived elsewhere for brief periods – including half a year in Copenhagen, where I painted a stage set for the Danish Royal Theatre, and two summers in France at an idyllic artist’s colony. But New York remains my true home, the place I feel most myself.

Design comes naturally to Ms. Rosenblatt, who wrote and illustrated her first book when she was four years old.

“My mother patiently typed my fantastical ranting and we pasted them into construction paper books which I illustrated with crayon,” she said yesterday.

Twenty years later, still longing to write and illustrate books, Ms. Rosenblatt attended the Cooper Union in the East Village under a scholarship. Five years after graduating, she became a published illustrator.

Her first book, Zen for Beginners, was published by Writers and Readers, Inc. These “For Beginners” books were precursors to the “For Dummies” and “For Idiots” series in that they explained complex topics to laypeople, and included extensive illustrations and lively page design, ms. Rosenblatt said. The late publisher of Writers and Readers, Glenn Thompson, was considered a visionary for popularizing this approach to nonfiction whereby complex historical and philosophical topics became available to “late-blooming” readers of all ages.

Over the years Ms. Rosenblatt has worked for Writers and Readers, Inc, as an illustrator, author and art director. She also freelanced for other small, alternative presses such as Four Walls Eight Windows and Seven Stories Press. In addition, she freelanced for large, well-known publishers like Random House and Scholastic, where she works now.

And what’s next?

“A partner and I will be starting a very small press, HelioTrope Press,” Ms. Rosenblatt said. “Our first book will be available this summer.”

She also pays keen attention to her money. “As a young professional, I am very happy that I own an apartment,” she said. “So real-estate is my real asset. But I have been a conservative investor, only putting money in well-performing companies with more than a 20 year-history of performing well. One can take risks in design. But when it comes to money, well, I’m a pretty unimaginative person who’s putting away money for her retirement.” Of course, for Ms. Rosenblatt, retirement is still a very long way off.