I had the honor of working with photographer Rick Smee to create a beautiful coffee table book of photographs from his humanitarian work with The Great Football Giveaway, a UK-based charity whose mission is to donate footballs to children who live in areas of extreme poverty around the world.

No kid should be denied the chance to kick a ball about. It’s one of life’s most simple pleasures.

So that’s what we’re here for. To get sports equipment direct into the hands (or feet) of some of the world’s most disadvantaged kids.

More balls, more smiles. Simple…

Why give a ball?

Footballs not only provide some much needed fun, but they can also be used to help increase school attendance and performance overnight. Alternatively, kids from villages that once fought each other in war, can now use football to play together in peace. All around the world orphan centres, local run organisations and community projects can use footballs to draw kids off the street and into care. Put simply, footballs are a hugely resourceful tool.

Rick joined The Great Football Giveaway in Angola and captured the excitement on the children’s faces as they received their footballs. The book contains amazing portraits of the people of Angola, and Rick also provides great narratives describing his experiences as he traveled through the provinces of Huambo and Lubango.

The book is an amazing testament to the power of a single kind act. Through Rick’s photographs, you can see the joy in the children’s faces as they receive the footballs and the gifts of play and friendship. Like Paul Clarke (founder of The Great Football Giveaway) said, “Simple…”

Below are a few spreads from the book so you can get a glimpse of Rick’s beautiful photography and share in his experience as an ambassador for The Great Football Giveaway.

Click on the link below to view book details or purchase a copy.

The Great Foot…

By Rick Smee

Book Preview

Beyond the Bosphorous, by acclaimed author Elizabeth Morantz, is now available on Amazon!

I had the honor of working with Liz on the cover design and the layout for the interior pages of the book. We also worked together with BookSurge, part of the Amazon group, to coordinate the online distribution and printing of the book.

Liz is an amazing writer, and I can’t say enough how privileged I was to be a part of her creative process.

Beyond the Bosphorous is the story of amateur sleuth and dedicated do-gooder, Caroline, who stumbles onto a mystery while on an innocent holiday in southern France. Acting on impulse and alone for the first time in years, she is determined to do what she thinks is right, even though it takes her out of her comfort zone and up to the small village of Vergers-en-Ciel. Prejudices and misconceptions cause her to make some serious miscalculations and she ends up being drawn into the fascinating lives of the Rom, Gypsies camping on the foothills of the Pyrenees. All the while, memories of her French-Canadian upbringing intrude. Raised by her grandparents in the Acadian village of Shediac, she has reason to seek redress for a childhood complicated by parental abandonment, precocious sexuality and emotional trauma. In a wise journey that never loses its sense of humour, Caroline comes to question the ways her past has informed her, and ultimately finds safe haven for herself.

To learn more about the book, or to order your copy, click here.

I got my copy!!!

This is just one reason why I love making books. It’s awesome to get the chance to design a love story.

(Below is just a peek. The rest is for the twosome only…)

Click here for a book preview.

What’s amazing about this book is that it could be used as a geography/world history textbook. The photographs are awesome, and the information it contains is excellent. Did you know that one silk worm cocoon can make 1000 meters of thread? I didn’t know that until I made this book!

Want to see a preview? Click here.

The book contains more than 30 pages of photographs of her daughters (the “SISTERS”) over the past 20 years.

Click here to see a preview of the book.