Book Design

The philanthropy department at the University of Kent contracted me to design a book celebrating the university’s fifty-year untold history of philanthropy. Hidden History included case studies of notable donors and previous fund-raising drives, and the stories behind the university’s art collections and emblematic buildings.

The client required the design of the book to be informative and image heavy, with the look of a ‘coffee table’ book to appeal to a wider audience, but it also had to follow the university’s corporate guidelines, using their fonts, colours and logos.

When I began work on the Hidden History, I did not know how much text or images I would have. So, I designed the pages to be simple and flexible, allowing me to add more content at a later stage. I did this by using a one column layout for the text with a wider outer margin. This meant I could place any captions, quotes and smaller inset images into this margin without worrying about disrupting the flow of the main text.

For the front cover, I wanted to play on the ‘hidden’ aspect of the title, but I also wanted to show a hint of the subjects covered within the book. I turned the ‘hidden’ part of the title into an outline, with each letter showing a cropped image from a different chapter. This continued inside the book, where I used a large outline for the chapter numbers with a cropped ‘hidden’ image.

To promote the book’s launch, I also designed flyers and posters, along with social media banners.

The contents of the book reflect the TV show's preoccupation with DNA. The client wanted this reflected in the design, so I introduced a DNA logo that could change for each character profile and a DNA code pattern around the edges of pages to add visual interest. I designed the character profile page to work as either a single page (for a minor character) or as an opener (in this example) for a major character.

Envy Design contracted me to work on the spin-off series of The Dangerous Book for Boys. HarperCollins wanted to reformat the original into a series of four smaller format books, adding new content. I followed the design established in the original Dangerous Book for Boys and introduced additional design elements where required.

The 101 Weekends in Europe series were guide books for weekend activities in Europe. It included 101 Weekends in Europe, 101 Adventure Weekends in Europe and 101 Romantic Weekends in Europe.

I established the original design for the first book, 101 Weekends in Europe. Some entries comprised two pages, others only one, so I designed a layout that worked for either, allowing the one hundred and one entries to fit into the overall page extent, along with chapter openers for each country, and pages for the introduction and index. Each entry has a coloured sidebar, which appears on the outer margin of the page. This sidebar contained the entry number for easy reference, along with facts and other relevant information about the country.

After the success of the first book, I worked on the next two.

Classic Steam was a collection of photographs depicting North American rail travel from the classic age of steam trains. This was a picture-heavy book and my brief was to make the most of this photography. The images varied in quality, so I used a layout that allowed me to mix images of different sizes. While most of the photography was in black and white, I created some variety by breaking up the pages with double-page colour features.

The client requested a retro-inspired design for the mini kits. They wanted to take advantage of the Dangerous Book for Boys market. In addition, they wanted the kits to target a male audience, making them ideal as stocking fillers or Father’s Day gifts.

My inspiration for the design came from researching old magazines and comics, like The Eagle, Roy of the Rovers and Look and Learn. I wanted the artwork to be consistent across the kits, so I commissioned illustrator Maya Gavin to provide them.

The two books, 500 Cupcakes and 500 Cookies, were the first in the ongoing 500 recipe book series. I created the original look of the series.

My brief was to design a stylish small format, practical book series. The client also wanted the books to possess gift appeal. Each book would contain five hundred recipes and over sixty photographs. I worked out a layout that allowed for the one hundred base recipes, photography and four hundred variations, to fit within the page extent.

It was a challenge to photograph over sixty cupcakes or cookies and make them all look interesting and different. I worked with the photographer, Ian Garlick. We used different props and coloured backgrounds to create a unique look for each recipe, which prevented the books from becoming boring.

The client wanted Asian Flavours to look like a contemporary cooking book. Their initial plan was to reuse photography from their back catalogue of cookbooks. I argued it would be more consistent to maintain one style of photography throughout the book. It would make the book look modern and add value.

I designed and art directed Asian Flavours. Knowing the strength of the book would be in the photography, I commissioned Ian Garlick. By working together, we could make each recipe look unique and appetising, achieving this through the use of different props and backgrounds.

Eat & Drink is a collection of food writer and television presenter Olly Smith’s favourite recipes and food-related stories.

The original brief was that the book would be text only. This expanded into an illustrated, two-colour book. The client wanted the design to look like a notebook to match the author’s writing style. Olly supplied his own hand-drawn artwork, and the client was keen to incorporate them into the design.

Hotel Chocolate required a design for a promotional book. Chocolate Unwrapped was a mixture of articles and photography, showing the history and art of chocolate making. It was a picture-heavy book, using images from their extensive photography library.

I have designed many picture insets for publishers, like Penguin Random House, Melville House and Hesperus Press. They vary in size and extent. Sometimes they are straightforward. Others are more like a jigsaw puzzle, but I enjoy the challenge of finding the best fit and balance for the imagery and captions.