Stand Up! (internal pages)

Stand Up! (internal design)

OK, now for some internals. These were a joy to work on – 32 pages in full colour, with a very open brief. For each issue tackled in the text (for example, Global Warming), there is a ‘for’ and an ‘against’ spread – each designed to be as persuasive as possible with emotive images. The student is challenged to see past all this persuasive stuff and identify the truth. We aimed to make every spread very different from the last, with lots of surprises and a bit of chaos balanced against usability. See what you think. 

 

 

 

 

 

Stand Up!

Stand Up!

 

I loved working on this. Stand Up! is a book aimed at early high school students, and it encourages students to analyse and question the written word and highly polished or emotive images to discover the true message therein. This group of kids are so accustomed to slick visuals wherever they look, so we went for a zine feel with loads of layers and textures and organised chaos throughout! I did the cover and internals, plus illustration where required.

The Crystal Crescent

The Crystal Crescent

 

A sci-fi novel for pre-teens. This cover features my first crack at outer space!

The future looks grim, the ozone layer has been destroyed and earth is at risk. Raki and Tando are on a mission to find a source of the rare substance telotion, which when heated creates masses of ozone.

Cover and text design + 10 full page b/w illustrations + scattered small illustrations

My Summer of the Lions

summer lions

My Summer of the Lions

 

The first book I designed for Pearsons NZ. This novel for pre/early teens deals with some heavy stuff – the loss of his mother and an emotionally absent dad lead Martin into the wrong company, until he discovers friendship in the unlikely form of a pair of ageing zoo lions. The cover needed to look dark and edgy, but tinged with hope.

Cover + text design + 16 internal b/w illustrations

The Ninth Dragon

Ninth dragonThis cover was great fun to design, aided by frills such as gold foil and embossing. The dragon was drawn freehand, then coloured. Layered offsets were made of it in a couple of colours to give it a feel of old print. I also finally found the perfect use for a font I have long loved: Chinese Rocks.

A historical novel which begins at an archaeological dig in China where Zach’s mum has landed a job at a nearby museum. Zach joins her there most reluctantly for the holidays, but once he has found a mysterious carved jade dragon at the dig, life turns very strange indeed.

Cover and text design + ten full page b/w illustrations + scattered small llustrations

Memory Bones

memory bonesMemory Bones

 

This historical novel for early teens focuses on the early life of Mary Anning (thought to be the inspiration for the tongue-twister ‘she sells sea shells by the sea shore’). Mary scours the coastline and cliffs near Dorset in search of fossils that she can sell to feed her impoverished family. She makes a historically significant discovery …

This cover features an aged linen texture and muted tones to enhance the themes of poverty and loneliness. The skeleton of the ichthyosaur (fish-lizard) is embossed.

Cover and text design + 13 monotone watercolour illustrations + scattered small illustrations

Island Bound

Island boundIsland Bound

 

This story for early teens is based in Bermuda, so the design adopted a laid-back wood-grain-with-peeling-paint look.

A story of displacement and coming to terms with it, with a mystery at the centre.

Cover design and illustration + 16 b/w internal illustrations

The Intruder

IntruderThe Intruder

 

A futuristic tale for pre-teens. Luca is the sole occupant of Moon Base, where a secret mineral has been found to produce bumper crops of food for Earth, grown under giant domes. Luca is there day in, day out, supervising the computerised supply chain. But then Luca’s lonely world is disrupted by an unknown intruder. The question is, friend or foe?

Cover design and illustration, plus 16 black and white collage chapter illustrations

Those blue tendrils on the cover are foil – cool!

Hippo ears

hippo ears

Hippo Ears and the Stargazer

 

A pre-teen historical novel. I chose an silhouette illustration style borrowed from Grecian urns for the cover and internal illustrations.

Hippoarchus and his sister Sappho listen to enchanting stories about the stars, the sun and the Earth from their friend the Stargazer. But some feel his stories are dangerous. He must be warned before it is too late….

Cover design and illustration + 10 full page internal illustrations + small scattered illustrations