6-color printing with two hits of opaque white ink on a silver foil sheet. Illustrations by Piñata at You Work For Them.

Cover photo of a Florida panther by Joel Sartore.

Photo mosaic of some of the wildlings from Joel Sartore’s Photo Ark.

Himalayan monal pheasant photo by Joel Sartore.

All images by Joel Sartore.

Magpie painting by the incredible Basil Ede.

Cover illustrations by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. Glow in the dark spot gloss on the title as a special surprise.

Photo by Nick Nichols.

Slipcased with emboss, triangle thumb cut, charcoal fabric endcaps, and silver foil.

Slipcased with silver foil, silver fabric endcaps, metallic silver rhumb lines, and a triangle thumb cut. May have come out the same year as the first iPhone.

Image of Neil by Miller Mobley, black hole artist’s concept by European Space Agency, NASA and Felix Mirabel. Spaghettification artist concept (objects stretching and becoming elongated as they get sucked into a black hole) by Neil!

Cover image courtesy Cosmos Studios.

Cover photo of Nefertiti bust by Jürgen Liepe

Mosaic photo by Andrea Thompson; mosque image by Roberto Chicano.

Image by Visko Hatfield

Pith helmet by Siede Preis.

Illustration by Eric Nyquist

Cover photo by R. Gino Santa Maria, altered by me to look more scary.

Cosmic Journey graphic by Sean McNaughton, Samuel Velasco, 5W Infographics, Matthew Twombly and Jane Vessels, NGM staff, Amanda Hobbs.

This one is so old I don’t have any record of who shot the cover photo. It was one of the first covers I was allowed to design in my early tenure at NatGeo, and it wrongly gave some people the impression that I had a sophisticated sense of restraint.

I bought that thermometer on ebay for $9.99, and digitally altered the readout to only have 6 degrees. It was German, and came in a little red leather case. I still have it. Photo by Mark Thiessen.

Silver and green metallic ink. I like this cover, but I feel like this book deserved a better one.

Those are Darwin’s actual blood sucking finches that he collected on said voyage in the Galapagos! They were photographed by Frans Lanting.

Artwork by Andreas Lie, using images shot by the authors, Jim and Jamie Dutcher.

Cover photo by Peter Stewart.

Shortly after this book came out, we were alerted that someone had taken the pattern I created for it and removed the author name and our company logo, and used it on tee shirts and belt buckles being sold on ebay. I was mildly flattered but our legal department felt differently.

Cover image by the legendary David Douglas Duncan.

Cover photo by Mario Testino.

Printed case with a clear acetate dust jacket screen printed in white ink.

Cover artwork by Kevin Clarke, “Bug Under Glass”; photographed by Becky Hale

I took this photo of an old typewriter that belonged to the book’s editor while sitting on the floor of my office. It is hard to take a picture and type a letter at the same time, but by god, I did it.

Cover collage photo taken by Mark Thiessen of a bunch of letter-writing paraphernalia owned by various members of the design and photo departments at National Geographic.

This is Emma, a chocolate Labrador retriever, photographed by David duChemin, who told us she was “a very good dog.”

Thermophilic algae provide the color of the travertine of Fly Geyser in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Photo by Inge Johnsson.

Those are my lips! I give and I give, I tell you.

Box jellyfish by Gary Bell.

Cover photo of Young pilgrims at the Swayambhu Temple, Kathmandu by Arne Hodalic.

A customer at a late-night coffee stall on the junction of Tothill and Victoria Street, London by Charles Hewitt, 1952.

Cover illustration by Robert Saunders.

La Sagrada Familia cathedral by Index Stock.

Illustration of Theseus Slaying the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth, Bettman archives.

Angry eagle (all eagles are angry, all the time, it’s science) artwork by world’s foremost raptor portraitist David Quinn.

Cover photo by Sandro Vannini. This image file is so big you could probably print it on the side of a bus, and it would be the coolest bus in town.

Illustration of a marine iguana from the Picture Collection, The Branch Libraries, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

How do you call a book America the Beautiful and NOT put an enraged-looking eagle on the cover?

Gold foil border. Photo of the South Rim at sunset, Grand Canyon National Park by Tom Till.

Cover photo by Martin Ruegner.

Yosemite photo by Mary Liz Austin.

Hilarious cover art by Giulia Ghigini.

More hilarious cover art by Giulia Ghigini.

Cover art by Julius T. Csotonyi, based upon scans of a nearly complete mummified hadrosaur that was the subject of the book.

Lewis and Clark Expedition (oil on canvas), by Thomas Mickell Burnham, (1818-66)/David David Gallery, Philadelphia, PA,

Charming humpback whale photo by Brian Skerry.

Great gray owl photo by Sven Začek.

Cover photo by Gilles Bensimon.

Cover photo by Jason Elias

A humorous, witty exploration of the process of grieving, this cover features a casserole baked by the editor (who is also holding it), and a cover photo by Sarah Jun.