One of the reasons why we knew Imagine! was the right publisher for our book was that their vision of what our final book would look like, far exceeded our own. Right from the start they were adamant that the book would be as inspiring in look and design as it was in words and stories.

With the manuscript nearing completion and it's first round of structural editing attention is turning to selecting the very best of the images we have of the expedition to use as illustrations in the book. If we thought choosing the right words was challenging, choosing the right pictures is equally tough!

What makes a good picture? There are the beauty shots of course, the images that show the wondrous landscape of the Arctic Ocean in all its delicately shaded perfection - but an image can be so much more than beautiful. A carefully crafted photograph can convey the menace of an ominous wall of ice rubble that must be crossed, the tension of the moments before departure on a journey into the unknown, the relief, joy and reward experienced in a moment of achievement. 

And then there are the subtle, mundane moments of an expedition that can actually be as telling as the heroic shots of the scenery - the look of exhaustion on a team mates face as she diligently dries gloves and socks above a stove in the tent, the chaos of packing the sledges in the days before leaving, the messages written in the snow from one team mate to another...

This book is more than a collection of words, it is a full archive of memories. To get the design right will take some time, but we hope to be done by the end of the year. Let's get to work - Yalla!