Ian Winton Book Design: Pop Out and Play, Oyster Books (& Parragon Books)

Interactive board book series where each pop out and play character (attached to the spine by coloured ribbon) can be moved through the book as the story is read.

About me

I have worked in children’s publishing for over 30 years, after graduating from Middlesex Polytechnic (now University) in 1984. I started out as a freelance paper engineer and designer for Octopus Books in London. After working on several projects I was taken on as an in house designer and employed in the childrens and fiction department full time. At Octopus I worked on a whole range of novelty books, licenced character series, paper engineering projects, reference books and jackets for adult fiction titles.

I left Octopus in 1987 and went to Dorling Kindersley where I worked on various titles, including gardening, health and fitness and food and drink.

I left DK in 1988, went freelance and moved to Shropshire. Keeping in touch with my contacts in London and Bath I worked for quite a few publishers and book packagers and split my time fairly evenly between design, paper engineering and illustration. After 4 or 5 years I began to work predominantly in book design and since then have worked for over 40 UK and US publishers on a very wide range of titles from simple board books to encyclopedias for teenagers.

From December 2010 until August 2012 I worked part time with the Design Team at Cornwall's Eden Project, although I am still retained on a part time zero hours contract. I have worked on an extremely broad range of projects, from simple directional signage to complex Photoshop diagrams and from lively informative posters to brochures to accompany fundraising events.