Making the partwork:- The Wildlife of BRITAIN
 The Problem It was 21.00 hours when Stan Morse chief executive of Midsummer Books of London telephoned. '.....John our new wildlife part-work is still not testing well' – 'everyone likes it, but the feedback is that they have seen it all before'. He continues to describe the content and format. It has the usual wonderful photographs and is divided into sections, Habitat, Lives of Animals, Flora etc. and is to be called The Wildlife of Britain. There's a graphic index for the various sections, and a large introductory image for the featured creature - now a photograph because an illustration had been rejected by a focus group when used in an earlier test. 'What can we do John?'.....'This is our last chance as we are running short of money.' The first creature to be featured was The Barn Owl and I suggested that he used a ribbon diagram or sequence drawings - (I had done many of these for 'War Plane' and other works on aviation for Stan) - as this illustration technique would be an all new thing for nature lovers - and be a good way of showing movement. His reaction was to say - ' Do it' and, as I was waiting for a definite brief for work from another publisher, I agreed, not knowing just what I had let myself in for. Illustration is of a Buck Rabbit made for The Wildlife of Britain © Susan and John Ridyard |
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