Department of Corrections
ara poutama AotearoaPoutama: The Wellbeing Series for prisoners
Activity books for every prisoner in Aotearoa during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Creative thinking
With regular prison programmes shut down, we had to move fast and with real care. The content and design needed to be appropriate and non-triggering, right down to production decisions like avoiding staples. Te ao Māori and Pasifika perspectives were central to the series because Māori and Pasifika make up the majority of prisoners in Aotearoa so the books needed to genuinely reflect and speak to the people reading.
Creative doing
As design lead, I coordinated content development and production across the series, built a design system flexible enough to adapt across each book, and typeset every document myself.
Creative partners
Resource developers, editors and the production team at HUIA Publishers, alongside various illustrators, photographers and Blue Star commercial printers.
The outcome
The series was commissioned for a second run after restrictions eased – the strongest possible signal that it was genuinely helping people.
