The Trail endpapers [for Scholastic]

[J.Edward]

Back in the summer of 2016 I was contacted by Scholastic to work with them on the endpapers for a book they were publishing called The Trail by Meika Hashimoto.
The story follows Toby as he hikes a portion of the Appalachian Trail through the White Mountains in New Hampshire into Maine toward Katahdin.
I had the pleasure of reading the manuscript before working on them, which I often find helpful to get the feel and flavor of the work.
It's target audience is young adult but it was still a pleasant read. I believe the paperback will still feature the maps in some fashion.

The project had some decent challenges and a fair amount of research involved and was one of the most interesting map projects I had worked on to that point.
It was completed in February of this year [2017] and the book was published on July 25th and is out in hardback. The front and back endpapers were different, which is not the common practice but the section of the Appalachian Trail was long and this allowed for more illustration variety and a more in depth look at the trail.

It was to be done in one color so I had to expand my usage of halftone to get the full spectrum look I wanted, but it was still a challenge.
These were two of my favorite maps and thought the blue on cream really looked nice. Enough rambling. Here's the maps. Also have two photos of them in book.

>----------->
------------Front papers >-----------------------------------> Back papers

In book pics

[Tonnichiwa]

Wow! These are some splendid maps John! Congrats on such an interesting commission.

[J.Edward]

Thanks Tony

[Voolf]

Your illustrations are outstanding, no wonder you can produce such beautiful maps, if you can make such magnificent landscape painting/illustration. (which i find way more difficult than maps).

Thanks for sharing and congratz on that commission !

[Falconius]

That is awesome. Fantastic work. What is that ball/swirly globe thing in the first image? Something from the book?

[J.Edward]

Your illustrations are outstanding, no wonder you can produce such beautiful maps, if you can make such magnificent landscape painting/illustration. (which i find way more difficult than maps).

Thanks for sharing and congratz on that commission !

Thank you Voolf
Adding other illustrations into a map can be challenging. For me, it has a lot to do with how well I planned it out before starting.
I have a desire to jump right in to the map.

That is awesome. Fantastic work. What is that ball/swirly globe thing in the first image? Something from the book?

Thanks Falconius
It's a marble, which does figure strongly in the story.
The particular marble was described and was not an easy thing to try to portray.
All of the smaller illustrations relate to specific locations or events in the story.
A number of them changed over the course of edits and revisions.

[Mouse]

Wow, John!

Just.... incredible

You put the rest of us to shame! LOL!

[- JO -]

The images of the animals are splendid! Congratulations

[Diamond]

I can't rep you again just yet, but fantastic work, J. Those critters are great!

[Chashio]

Beautiful work, J.