Whitworth and i, LLC is a creative studio and independent press co-founded by Tom Whitworth and Jeri Lynn Chandler.
We create illustrations that inspire a love of nature and its wild inhabitants — graphics and text to inform, engage and interpret natural and cultural history — and books and related printed material exploring landscape, the natural world and our human connection to place.
Whitworth and i began in 2000 as a creative services company, providing graphic design, illustration, and research and writing services. We have worked on a wide variety of projects over the years for many different clients.
One of our specialties has been concept design and content development for museums, parks and other natural areas. Tom has contributed to designs for the Yosemite Visitor Center, Malibu’s Legacy Park, and the Museo del Niño in Mexico City, among others. His original illustrations have also helped to visualize interpretive plans, inspire backing for proposals, and animate many signs and panels.
For a list of client projects, click here.
In 2005 we partnered with the Sonoma Valley Historical Society to produce and publish Sonoma’s Last Pioneer, which received the Editor’s Award for Historical Scholarship from the Sonoma County Historical Society in 2007. Several years later an illustration commission turned into a publishing proposal and Beyond Biology was issued. In the interim we had also published April in the Yosemite—and ghostwritten one book and designed a number of others for clients—but it was Beyond Biology that prompted us to shift from “sometime publisher” to proper indie press.
As occasional collectible booksellers and longtime bibliophiles, over the years we’ve noticed that the books we most enjoy collecting and handling are increasingly difficult to find. Older works might be available—but too often only as poorly produced facsimile copies. We decided to do something different.
Some of the books we publish are new, but most are fresh, edited editions of titles that are in the public domain or have otherwise gone out of print. We search out interesting books on gardening, herbs and cookery, travel and regional history, natural history and folklore.
TOM WHITWORTH
Tom worked for twenty-two years in marketing, advertising and business consultancy for companies such as General Foods, Lyons Tetley, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising and Hal Riney & Partners before making the transition to his current design and illustration work. His designs and illustrations have been incorporated into rainforest exhibits in Mexico City, the Visitor Center in Yosemite National Park, extravagant hotels in Las Vegas, as well as whimsical and fanciful note cards and T-shirts.
JERI LYNN CHANDLER
Jeri Lynn’s eclectic background in environmental conservation and design grew naturally out of a seemingly innate feel for the land and its plants and animals. Her interests in biology, photography and landscape, as well as research, writing, and public information work for the National Park Service, World Wildlife Fund, and Maryland’s natural resources department dovetailed in the study of landscape architecture.