How did a hipster like Greg Foley create such sweet books?

You have this ultrahip persona—you’re creative director of three chic fashion magazines, you direct music videos, and you live in New York’s Greenwich Village. And yet you’ve created two really sweet, totally uncool titles for young kids—Thank You Bear and its sequel, Don’t Worry Bear.

I’m a teacher too—I teach a course at Parsons School for Design with two of my colleagues—it’s kind of in my blood. My father’s an anthropologist and professor at the University of Texas, and my mother’s a psychologist and also a teacher and a counselor at Austin Community College. I might appear a certain way on the surface, but if you look at any of the creative stuff I’ve actually been involved with—Visionaire, V Magazine, and VMan; the videos; most of the things I really enjoy doing—my goal is to communicate to as many people as possible; it’s not to make an enviably cool thing.

Still, I bet a lot of folks were shocked when they saw your books.

They were surprised. When a lot of people in the fashion industry found out about Thank You Bear, they’d say, “That’s so different from what you usually do.” But to me, it’s really not.

In your first book, Thank You Bear discovers an empty box that he thinks is really great. But when he shows it to the other animals, everyone except Mouse thinks it’s utterly worthless. Is the story autobiographical?

I think that happens daily. I got the idea for the story when I was sitting in a design meeting for V Magazine. Somebody was presenting some images, and it was humorous how different the reactions were around the table. The responses ranged from catty to hilarious.

I love the spare, retro style you use.

The design of the bear character and the style of pen line are sort of an homage to Charles Schulz. His artwork and comic strips meant a lot to me as a kid. Sometimes I like to think, if Charles Schulz had drawn a bear, it might have been Thank You Bear.

What kind of kid were you?

I was very gregarious and curious and, of course, creative, and I also got into a fair bit of mischief. My parents reminded me that when I was little, I’d introduce myself as an artist. Since I was good with my hands, my relatives encouraged me to do something practical, like become a dentist. So for years, I’d say, “I want to be a dentist,” even though I didn’t really want to be one. It wasn’t until my junior year in high school that my art teacher, Al Rodriguez, recommended I go to art school. He entered my drawings in all sorts of competitions, and it was a huge relief to finally have a direction.

You’re such a visual guy, was it hard for you to write?

Yeah. I started doing workshops at the New School in early 2000. The first class was with Nancy Kelton, who normally teaches writing from personal experience. She was really great; she had these basic rules, which helped me sharpen my stories. She’d tell the class, “Just turn in your stories in Times New Roman, 12 point, double-spaced or I’m not going to look at them. And if they’re longer than two pages, they’re too long for a picture book.” Thank You Bear was less than a page long, and she held it up as a good example. What’s shocking is that was actually the first story I ever wrote.

Wow! And it recently won this year’s Zolotow Award, honoring outstanding writing in a children’s book. That’s pretty encouraging, huh?

Yeah! Sometimes the simplest and most basic story can be the most effective.