A Lark in the Ark: a New Look for 2014!

I have just had a rather nice email from Egmont, publishers of the wonderfully silly, lift-the-flap book I did with author Peter Bentley a few years ago, called A Lark in the Ark. It's basically a game of animal hide-and-seek, but with dressing up and funny rhymes: 'Baboons in pink pantaloons... Bears in flares and wombats in combats!' 

You can see how this illustration works with the flaps by the way, on a simple animation I've set up here.

Anyway, Egmont were emailing to tell me they are doing a reprint of our book, which is great news in itself: in these tricky times, a lot of back-list titles are finding their reprints have been cancelled, so books are going out of print all over the place. 

But the thing I really wanted to tell you about, is the new-look cover design: 

Because A Lark in the Ark is a few years old now, Egmont thought a slight refresh might give it a boost and create a more contemporary feel. The cover above is the new one, opened out flat, so you can see front and back; below is the original:

I love it. I think the texture of my pastel illustrations works well when contrasted against a flat background. If you have a look, you can see that quite a few of my covers have been created that way. I like the way the brighter blue really makes the ark jump forwards too: 

The new text font is great as well. It feels less formal and really rather funky. I didn't have to do anything - the designer did all the boring cutting-out at their end. All I had to do was approve the design, which of course I did with enthusiasm.

As with all my titles, if you would like a personalised, signed copy, with your own little illustration inside, all you have to do is email me. Egmont have raised the price for next year by £1, to £7.99. I suppose that's fair enough, since it's been held at £6.99 since its original publication in 2008. 

I hope you too like the funky new look!