Faces, Animals, Letters leapt out at us from the App Store when we saw it: a lovely-looking character-based app that encourages children’s creative instincts.

Developed by Pepillo, it’s inspired by a book of the same name in (we think) France.

“How do you draw a lion or a frog? Your best friends, your teacher, grandpa and grandma? Have you ever tried to turn the letters of the alphabet into objects, animals or people?” asks its App Store listing.

The app gets children to choose a background and a set of digital stickers, then start making the faces (or animals, or letters…) on the screen by dragging, dropping and then rotating and expanding/shrinking them.

The resulting pictures can be saved in the app’s gallery or shared through email or a parent’s Facebook account. As you can see, the results are bold and colourful, with lots of scope for imagination.

Faces, Animals, Letters costs £1.49 for iPad on Apple’s App Store.

Read about more animal apps for kids on Apps Playground, and check out our 100 Best iPad Apps of 2013 e-book – £1.99 from Apple’s iBooks Store