Soft stories about the world, to calm down with.
Stories, films and songs that hold a child's attention without winding them up. Calm and gentle, genuinely interesting, and paced like the natural world they are about, so you can hand one over and know your child comes back settled.
Bespoke stories, made for real families.
Softheld is a small creative studio writing stories for young children. Some are our own. Many are commissioned by families who want a story about someone their child loves, somewhere they are going, or something they do not want them to forget.
Beautiful bespoke storytelling has always existed, but only for people who could commission a writer and an illustrator. We are interested in what happens when that becomes possible for far more families, at a standard that still holds up.
We are interested in what technology can make possible without asking childhood to become more technological.
Softheld began with my own two children.
They are small, and endlessly interested in the world. I wanted to make stories, videos and songs they could connect to. Something to learn about animals from, and to find the specialness in their own world.
Mostly I wanted them to have something calm and beautiful to come back to, made with love and care. That is still how every Softheld story is made.
Technology should not make childhood louder.
Softheld thoughtfully uses AI-assisted creative tools alongside human writing, art direction, editing and storytelling. The goal is not to create more content. It is to make meaningful stories possible that may otherwise never have existed.
Every story is written, directed, reviewed and finished by people. What a child sees is a decision someone made.
AI-assisted production, under human direction.
Start a story of your own.
