Behind the Book: Choose Your Own Evolution with Gordy Wright

Go extinct or survive? Choose Your Own Evolution, is an exciting picture book from zoologist Jules Howard and illustrator Gordy Wright.

We caught up with Gordy to learn how he brought this interactive journey through the history of life on Earth to life.

What was your initial reaction to the concept?

I was very intrigued when I read the concept for the book as I love working on projects that tell stories about nature and our planet. And although I enjoyed reading growing up, I hadn’t read many ‘choose your own adventure’ style books so I was interested to see how it would work, especially in a nonfiction format. Evolution is perhaps one of the greatest sequential narratives so giving the reader the choice about how to navigate that story felt like an exciting idea!

What was your research process like for depicting animals from so many different time periods and evolutionary paths?

When I start out illustrating a book, the first thing I do is gather reference materials. Some non fiction projects require you to be more specific about the types of things you paint. Like in this book where each page is about a different creature that all lived millions of years apart, the world looked very different at each point. The amount of reference imagery available also varies greatly, for example with the Helcionellid that lived 530 million years ago, you’re quite limited as there’s only a few fossils and artist interpretations to go off, but the page about dogs I could literally just look at the one by my feet!

Talk me through your process a little, where do you start when illustrating a book?

For most books I work on, at the start I am given the page layouts with the text on. There are sometimes little notes with ideas of what could be on each page but these are normally just flexible suggestions. I’ll then take these documents into procreate and sketch out the roughs for each page and after a few back and forth alterations, the painting can begin! My favourite mediums to paint in are gouache, acrylic and inks, depending on how much detail is needed in the illustration.

What was your favourite spread to illustrate?

I would say the favourite pages that I illustrated would either be Shell Shock or Amphibians, Assemble. They are both set in the carboniferous period where you get all these green swampy forests, with big interesting trees and ferns and the insects are all huge because of the increased levels of oxygen in the atmosphere.

What was it like working with the team at Nosy Crow?

I felt very lucky to work with Nosy Crow again on this book. I had worked with Tina the art director previously on a book called Secrets of the Dead so I knew we would work well together. The feedback I got was always incredibly helpful and would always help elevate the artwork.

Looking back on your journey as an illustrator, what do you think this book has added to your creative toolkit?

Apart from the three introduction spreads, each page in this book had it’s own unique narrative happening so it was important to try and keep each illustration varied and exciting. Thinking about how each story interacted with the next page pushed me to try and make work that was more dynamic whether that came from colour, scale or contrast.

What do you hope young readers take away from this book?

I would love if this book helped inspire the next generation of zoologists, environmental biologists or palaeontologists!

And finally, can you give us a little glimpse into what you’re working on next – or any new ideas you’re excited to explore?

I have just finished some final edits to my next book that takes the reader on a journey deep down to the bottom of the ocean!

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To work with Gordy, get in touch with his agent Susan Penny, here.