Hobblebush Design: Living Up to Its Name

If you hike or even take brief strolls in New England’s deciduous forest, you have definitely walked by a hobblebush.  This plant is humble and common, yet in May produces beautiful bright white blossoms.  Its leaves also change color throughout the year, from a brilliant green in the spring to a reddish-purple in autumn.  The publishing company Hobblebush Books and Hobblebush Design out of Brookline, New Hampshire identifies well with its name – it is a humble business that could be easily missed, but is accurately recognized as truly amazing when discovered.

When searching for a design company for the creation of the rocky shore curriculum, I was reading Poetry Showcase: an anthology of New Hampshire poets edited by our state poet laureate, Alice B. Fogel.  Admiring the book design at the same time I was enjoying the content, I discovered it was published by Hobblebush Books. A few emails and one meeting in person later, this talented independent press agreed to help me create a rocky shore curriculum that we hope will assist educators and students throughout the state and beyond!

Today I visited Kirsty Walker, president of Hobblebush Books and Design, to discuss the layout and process of creating the curriculum.  Kirsty is a great and talented individual to work with, and I am extremely happy that she will be in charge of the design of the curriculum.  She asked me my expectations of when I wanted to see the curriculum completed, and I was hesitant to answer as I was not sure if my expectations were unreasonable.  I suggested that it would be great to reflect on Christmas morning that the curriculum part of my sabbatical was completed, and thankfully she was confident that it was a reasonable request!

Here is an outline of what we will be doing over the next few months:

1. I will be typing up lessons, one at a time, and sending them to Kirsty for editing and design purposes.
2. I will be sharing my lessons with the New Hampshire Sea Grant program, the Seacoast Science Center, and the New England Aquarium to help with revisions and editing.
3. I will be gathering images from both Adam Kelley, the main illustrator for this project, as well as from the Seacoast Science Center.
4. Kirsty will be working on designing all the lessons together along with other complimentary pages, and creating one pdf file with all the content, as well as individual pdf files for each lesson.

I am so thankful for Hobblebush Design, who is “dedicated to publishing books that feature a unique voice and make a difference.”  When all is said and done, I am confident that this curriculum will make a difference, and with Hobblebush’s touch, will be unique, professional, and beautiful.