Designing Math

Much like putting together a next-day meal that works from varied leftovers, Senior Production Editor Erica Johnson today finds a way to combine bits of a whole–Thanksgiving Dinner, design, and math–in today’s returning-from-the-holiday-weekend blog post. (And she does a much better job at it than me putting together this blog intro!):

We’re back to work after the holiday weekend, and I trust that our readers were able to prepare a meal to proper cooking directions. Using math, you were able to measure ingredients, determine safe cooking temperatures and calculate baking times.

But what if your turkey dinner recipe came from family in England? Would you know how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit in the recipe directions?

That’s just one example featured in Kitchen Math, part of our new Math Everywhere series. Each book features children and adults working through everyday math problems. The challenge for this series was to present math in a visually pleasing format.

Large photos add context to story problems, but the math is truly on display in these colorful books. Formulas and conversions are highlighted in colored text, and math questions are reinforced with bold text or arrows. A back matter key lets readers check their answers for each problem. These design elements make Math Everywhere interesting to browse and easy to understand.