Following my very successful launch of Doctor Who Adventures, I was asked to work on the range of non-fiction Doctor Who books aimed at older readers. I designed and helped to devise the critically-acclaimed Brilliant Books, and also designed The Tardis Handbook, The Dalek Handbook, The Time Traveller's Almanac, A History of the Universe in 100 Objects and the celebratory 50th anniversary book, The Doctor - His Life and Times.
Two Brilliant Books were published, intended as a version of the traditional annual format for older readers. This is the cover of the second, designed by me with additional retouching by Stuart Manning. Unfortunately a change in the transmission pattern of the TV series meant no more were produced, but they are fondly remembered by fans.
My brief for the Brilliant Book was to take Doctor Who content and present it with the design and production values of Empire or Entertainment Weekly magazines, lavishly illustrated with exclusive photography and specially-commissioned artwork.
Each Brilliant Book covered one series of Doctor Who, with lots of facts and illustrations from each episode. The full-page illustration here is by Lee Johnson,
I don't mind telling you that the fonts I bought for this project were eye-wateringly expensive. But don't they look beautiful?
The Brilliant book was a mix of specially-commissioned illustrations and cleverly-used set photography.
We don't talk about these fat Daleks any more.
A spread from The Doctor – His Lives and Times. This 50th anniversary book was a mixture of an oral history and in-universe "historical" documents. I was joined on this project by Richard Atkinson, Stuart Manning and Dave Turbitt, who produced pages to my original designs.
Another Lives and Times spread. One of the challenges when working with vintage Doctor Who material is to make sure the quality of the old photographs matches that of the more recent ones. The 1980s, as you can see here, was not a great decade for cast photography.