Title: Tiaki: A shout-out to Aotearoa’s lesser-known creatures by Jean Donaldson
Publisher: Potton & Burton

Design Statement: This is the first and only published book I have designed in my career so far as I am less than a year and a half out of university. Tiaki was the project I created while in my final year of a Bachelor of Design at Massey University. I wrote, illustrated and designed the whole book. Its purpose was to create an accessible and engaging resource for young people in Aotearoa to learn about our unique wildlife while also bringing to light some of our lesser-loved creatures. Design choices like the use of illustration instead of photography and the modern typographic design were chosen to differentiate Tiaki from other scientific books detailing native animals. The aim of this was to engage a new audience of young readers. There was no input or guidelines from the publisher as the project was already created when it was picked up by Potton & Burton.