Red Paper Design

Covers from the 7 reader books we designed for Pearson Education. Penguin Active Readers are published internationally and feature a wide range of genres in UK and International English for ELT. Covers are usually by the artists, but sometimes use stock photos or classic paintings or prints.

Artists: Mike McKeever (Monkey King), Katie Mac (Good Day, Bad Day), Adam Hunter Peck (Stories of Other Worlds), Nick Hardcastle (Bleak House), Sonia Kretchmar (Under the Bridge).

Artist: Mike McKeever Artist: Katie Mac Artist: Adam Hunter Peck Nick Hardcastle Sonia Kretschmar

Although I like seeing finished artwork when it comes in, I get more excited earlier in the process, on receipt of roughs. I think it is because though the final artwork is usually very accomplished it is in the roughs that the draftsmanship can be seen.

So here are a few recent examples:

Nick Hardcastle:

Bleak House

Bleak House

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Stories of Other Worlds cover artwork: Adam Hunter Peck

Part of the Penguin Active Readers series for 2010, published by Pearson Education. Three short stories by H.G. Wells: The Country of the Blind, The Door in the Wall, The Young Ghost, illustrated respectively by Adam Hunter Peck, Mike Lacey, and Jamel Akib. •••• more »

This is a buy-in from an Australian publisher. The original was in mono with inconsistent typography. But the text was good, so rights were bought and we were asked to repackage the book with Firecrest’s artwork to produce new layouts. An Einstein boffin character is used to raise issues and mediate the learning.

(The © watermark is not art of the design! LOL)

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Abacus Evolve is a versatile and customizable maths course produced by Heinemann. We worked on the interactive teaching resources, ie. whiteboard presentations. They used Easiteach software from RM (Research Machines) which allowed easy onscreen manipulation of objects, drawing, writing in front of the whole class on interactive whiteboards by teacher or pupils. Easiteach was preferred over PowerPoint because it is so easy for the teacher to adapt on-the-fly in response to the class.

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Covers and sample spreads from the 2nd stage/level of Oxford Reading Tree Snapdragons. We were commissioned to produce 60 titles, in 10 levels or stages, using a wide variety of artists, typefaces, layouts and formats to motivate and stimulate readers. Though clearly leveled to provide a progression through the series, each title had to be an interesting book to pick-up and read for its own sake.

Artists: Andy Peters, David Mostyn, Jess Mikhail, Judy Brown, Lizzie Finlay, Liz Pichon

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Lavish fold-out books describing animals and plants in their habitats. We have begun the second book which covers the Everglades. A beautiful fold-out spread pictures the flora and fauna of the habitat, and subsequent pages work through each example. These designs were done for the Bologna and Frankfurt book fairs. We are now working on them for publication in the USA.

Day fold-out ©Firecrest Publications 2009

Snapdragons is part of the ever expanding Oxford Reading Tree (ORT) from Oxford University Press. Usually ORT book stories centre around the Biff and Chip characters, with consistent artwork and type. Not so the Snapdragons branch of the tree. We were commissioned to produce 60 titles, in 10 levels or stages, using a wide variety of artists, typefaces, layouts and formats to motivate and stimulate readers. Though clearly leveled to provide a progression through the series, each title had to be an interesting book to pick-up and read for its own sake.

Artists: Jan McCafferty, Sue Hendra, Jim Kavanagh, Joanne Partis, Ian Cunliffe, Colin Mier

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Goal! is a reading scheme with a football theme for less able readers wanting something interesting to read. These are workbooks that accompany the series.

A fun take on comic book super-heroes, and a good read too. Originally 6, now 12, graphic novels done in a manga style. These readers are aimed at older children needing help with reading who would be put-off by books written for younger readers. Ransom are particularly good at this sort of stimulating read, as is further demonstrated by their Goal! series.

The artist is Peter Richardson. He works in Illustrator, and his artwork is easy for a designer to work with, as the files are highly editable and adaptable for constructing prelim and cover pages, as well as being easily utilized for particular excerpts in worbooks.

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