Nicola was one of a core team that was recruited when Dorling Kindersley Cartography was set up – a venture that included, most notably, the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides as well as the many atlases and reference books produced by the unit. She became a central figure in the design and conception of what was an innovative approach to geographical information publishing. Nicola’s vision, professionalism, dedication and ingenuity were absolutely essential to the success of the many titles DK Cartography produced, and she is an original and creative designer, capable of producing a variety of solutions to the most complex of publishing challenges.

Nicola is an absolute delight to work with, with an obviously high level of skill and experience in design work for books. Those abilities shone through with the wonderful work she did on my research study of the Short-eared Owl, a 432-page book which I self-published in 2021; it attained a standard way above what I thought possible and Nicola's design gave the data and research observations style and accessibility. So much so that I am now utilising Nicola’s skills on a further book, one that includes a high number of data tables, and her work on that is already showing me, yet again, the broad width of her design capabilities.

I’ve worked with Nicola since 1995 at several publishers, including Dorling Kindersley and Bloomsbury. Nicola has an innate sense of elegance as a designer and we have produced some beautiful books of which I remain very proud. These include a huge, innovative World Atlas for DK and later a series of highly illustrated natural history, sport and historical titles for Bloomsbury. Nicola is excellent at taking a brief and producing designs that reflect the subject and flavour of a book. She is not afraid to express an opinion if she feels that something is not working and make suggestions to put it right. I would recommend her most highly as a designer and as a great person to work with.