The story of the Daintree Blockade is divided into 4 parts. The part opener spreads feature a full bleed image that showcase some of the natural environment that the blockaders where trying to protect.

Another part opener spread.

This is an example of the chapter opener spreads throughout the book.

As well as photographs, memorabilia items are used throughout the book.

the book contains a combination of professional news photography and amateur snaps.

Where ever possible, iconic images are used at full bleed size. This helps emphasize the images, but also gives a pause in the pace of the book.

Some images lend themselves to a full spread bleed. This is a terrific portrait of some of the main character in the story of The Daintree Blockade.

Another iconic image used at full bleed.

Sometimes the images are in a sequence. This also helps tell the story in a visual way.

The logo design for the author's own imprint. The name comes from a well-known local beach that also features in the story.

Initially, the author has been promoting The Daintree Blockade at a local market in Port Douglas, a main hub in the Daintree region. He required a free standing 2 metre high banner for the front of the market stall (at left) as well as a promotional bookmark (at right). Both were produced by a print shop, local to the author.

CHAPTER OPENER - Roald Dahl would write his books in a tiny garden shed with a felt-covered board on his lap. The chapter openers throughout the book are scenes where the felt-covered board is placed on the floor of the shed with objects scattered around it. This one is the first chapter opener, with the morning sunlight coming through a window bathing the spread in a soft light.

This is the last spread of the book, where Roald Dahl's writing has been completed for the day, and the board is cleaned up. There is a soft moonlight coming through the window. In the printed book, a little envelope containing a personal note for the reader is attached to the page. The lo-res layout indicates a positional for this.

The back cover of this title features reviews by a five year-old and three year-old readers. Nice.

The illustrations and text were largely finished before we became involved. But during the design process, some text and imagery required tweaking to get the story telling just right.

The cover design (front, back and spine).

This spread has one of the many timelines in this educational and engaging book. This history of early flight pioneers is presented as newspaper clippings.

QR codes appear on many spreads to direct the reader to explore further online content using a smart phone or tablet.

Many spreads require the use of clear and engaging information graphics to explain core concepts of a museum’s display.

Some activities are quite visual. Here the readers are asked to vote for their favourite objects in the National Air and Space Museum and then draw or name them in the spaces provided.

A summary of each of the three museums ends with a quick quiz and a blank area where readers can design their own postcard of their visit.

Throughout the book, the reader is encouraged to explore the displays more closely. This spread asks the reader to list their favourite finds on a journal page.

Phoenix, a life-size model of a North Atlantic right whale, is one of the National Museum of Natural History’s most popular displays. Here a checklist highlights features for the reader to look out for.

Some activities are best done outside the museum. Here the reader is given step-by-step instructions on how to start their own rock collection at home.

Instructions for “In the Museum” and “Try this at Home” activities are clearly outlined in a small panel at the top left of the page where the activity appears. Here, the reader is asked to mark on a map all the places they have visited in the USA.

The National Museum of American History has an extensive collection of lunchboxes on display. Readers can create their own lunchbox using the blank illustration provided.

We originally had only a handful of images of coins with which to build this scene. But by adding light and shadows, we created a treasure chest of immense wealth built up with many layers of coins. The wood around the edges and the metal fittings were also created in Photoshop out of ordinary images of wood and metal with various effects applied to the surfaces.

The images for each weapon came from a number of image libraries. As a result, they were all lit differently. After constructing the background wooden box and paper labels, the weapons were placed in the scene and then individually colour edited to ensure they all had the right lighting and shadows to bring the scene together.

Each design started out as a rough sketch to get the layout correct. These are two examples of the rough (very rough) sketches we initially supplied to the illustrator to begin the design process. The illustrator then took up the baton. After a few pencil drafts to-and-fro to sort out a few details, the final imagery received the full genius of Matteo's marvelous illustrations!

Staying close to their incumbant design, a simple tab device was introduced to the side trim of the covers to hold the pullout subtitle features.

Here, a multiple-image cover is shown as a move away from the traditional single-image cover used by nearly all other travel guides. A single image can be a troublesome representative of a country or region, so we thought the device of a feature image can then be augmented with secondary support images.

A single-image option with vertical title presented as a break from the traditional horizontal title. An element from the main image would then extend in front of the title panel slightly for an engaging effect.

A semi-transparent title panel with a sweeping shape to the border edge of the main cover image – a very strong break from the conventional cover designs. We thought a graphic device like this could really become a strong element of the Rough Guides cover designs branding.

Full cover for Sweet Treats.

The polka dot backgrounds reflected the nature of the tiny beads that are used in the creations.

The chapter openers gave a visual insight to the projects that featured in that chapter via the Polaroid-inspired photographic contents list.

Each project spread came with a recipe card including an ingredients list and numbered method list. Informative diagrams were placed near relevant text to help the crafter in their beading process.

Clean layouts help convey the technical information as well as step-by-steps.

Feature images throughout the book help the crafter have a close-up of the finished item.

The five chapters are distinctly broken down with the use of colour coding.

Maps and details of maps used as spread bleeds on the chapter openers.

Colour panels used as the start of section heads. Pull-out boxed panels with compass details in the background.

A combination of historical images and more contemporary reference images are scattered through the text.

To augment the content and images, his book contains 15 faithful reproductions of historic maps. Pouches are bound into the sections of the book which contain these removable pieces. To produce the facsimile reproductions, first, the original maps were digitally photographed in small sections to retain as much detail as possible. We were then commissioned to rebuild the maps at actual size of the original by painstakingly joining these digital images together in Photoshop. Creases, stains, pencils marks and any other blemishes are all retained so that the reader owns a facsimile collection of historic maps. This is one of those rebuilt maps – actual size is just over one meter wide!

These are the title pages for each book. They use elements from the spreads of each book to introduce the main characters.

Title: Amazon Adventure
Subject: Biology
Illustrator: Damien Jones
Storyline: The reader is searching for his great uncle Ramsay, an explorer who has mysteriously gone missing in the Amazon rainforest. In the company of some local guides the reader discovers the wonders of the rainforest and uncovers a sinister plot.

The storyline features some of the more dangerous and interesting animals of the rainforest. This gave plenty of scope to create imagery that helps maintain interest for the reader.

Some spreads contained individual snippets of information. Where possible these snippets were combined into a small scene. These vignettes help to convey the density and diversity of the rainforest environment.

The styling of the characters in all of the storylines was of great importance. They had to be realistic and entertaining for reluctant readers to become engaged with the storyline. Early development of all the characters was sketched and approved before placing them into the story environments.

Title: Funfair Fright
Subject: Physics
Illustrator: David Shephard
Storyline: The Magnificent Mayhem Maker (a mischievous mechanical Turk) tricks the reader into releasing a host of ghouls and spirits that run amuck in the funfair. The funfair's owner asks the reader to gather them back into a genie bottle using the guidance of a mystical book and the laws of physics.

Here, the reader is asked to solve a puzzle by completing the electrical circuit. A large, clear diagram of the task is used to visualise the problem for the reader.

Where possible, characters address the reader directly in order to help improve the emersion experience for the young reader.

Some questions required the use of simple diagrams to illustrate the particular concept in physics being discussed. These were intermingled with the action scenes of the storyline.

Title: Lost in Space
Subject: The solar system
Illustrator: David Shephard
Storyline: The reader is a patrolman for the Police Agency for Wider Space (PAWS). Whilst on a routine mission near Pluto, he rescues a kidnapped Professor and his robot dog. But they all soon become caught up in an adventure that spans the whole solar system.

Some elements of the storylines throughout this series involve the reader solving a visual puzzle by first answering the question correctly. Here the reader has to navigate through the asteroid belt to move to the next part of the story.

The storyline of this title allowed for a handy combination of interior and exterior scenes.

A metallic background texture is used on some pages to be reminiscent of hi-tech spaceship construction that the reader will have likely seen in other media (TV, movies, games etc).

Title: Secret Formula
Subject: Chemistry
Illustrator: David Shephard
Storyline: Granny Zara's sweet factory has been sabotaged and it looks like the work of the Krusty Korporation (Granny's rivals). The reader gets more than he bargained for when he infiltrates the KK sweet factory to retrieve Granny's stolen secret formula.

On some pages, the imagery and text are reversed out of the 5th black for dramatic effect.

Sometimes complete scenes are illustrated across the spread to create interest for the young reader and alter the pace of the storyline at critical points.

Candy stripes and other imagery associated with sweets are used as background patterns throughout this title.

The workflow for these titles was for us to draw up a very (very) rough pencil sketch to get an idea of what we'd need to lay out each page. We used these to approve layouts with Editorial. Then the illustrator was commissioned to provide pencils based on our roughs. We then tweaked the pencils and then sent those back to the illustrator to "go to colour". The final layout was then put together using the colour artwork.

We also designed various other elements needed for the storylines, like the main spaceship used in Lost in Space.

Here is an example of a whole spread laid out using our roughs, then the final colour spread artwork.

Thees are the covers (both front and back, and including the spine) for the series of four books. The imagery sets the scene for the internals and creates an interesting cover design that engages the young reader.

Informative graphics are used at the start of each book to introduce the concept of how sedimentary rock and archaeological digs can reveal the story of time.

Each main dinosaur featured on each spread has a scale panel to show its size compared with a human adult.

Each spread features a small world map panel to show where the fossils had been discovered.

The consistent use of striking full-bleed imagery...

plus simple typography and an identifying colour bar ...

... have built a successful cover brand for this craft series.

Strong photography by Michael Wicks is a constant feature of d4daisy books.

The spreads are designed to take full advantage of these fantastic images.

Object details are shown with complete images to allow the reader to see the quality workmanship.

The use of colour is very important to the readership of these books.

Preliminary sketches are shown alongside finished pieces.

The books include precise and masterly cut outs of fine textures.

The Workshop Series branding sits on the top left edge of the cover, over a striking full bleed image. Magenta and black were chosen as the brand colours for this series.

The covers feature a single full bleed image and when multiple crafters were involved details of work from each crafts person were used.

Images are used large to allow the readers to see detailed techniques.

Step by steps are kept simple and clean.

A flexible baseline grid allows for three column widths dependent on the images for the spread.

A colour panel on the opening spreads provides a visual clue to the start of each section.

Images of materials are scattered through the book, bleeding off the pages, providing some visual dynamics to the spread.

Effective colourful borders – montages of leaves, ferns, corals and branches – were created for this four books series.

This layered border helped hold the series cohesively together and set the scene.

High-impact images were sourced from a combination of both rights-managed and royalty free image libraries.

The viewfinder back of the digital camera was introduced as an image border promoting young readers to capture images themselves.

A signposted key explained at the start of each book the world map locator and endangered scale that appears on each spread.

Working to a tight image budget meant that some creative image sourcing was used to get just the right image.

Dramatic wildlife poses within the images helps attract the young readers.

Annotation captions and arrows help the young reader with identification of different species.

The call-out panels for Zoo Stars describes famous zoo animals from around the world that had captured the hearts of people through media attention.

Zoo View panels highlight specific zoo projects that are aiding animal welfare around the world.