Secret History: State Surveillance in New Zealand 1900–1956 is the first volume in a history of spies and spying in New Zealand, published by Auckland University Press. The written style of the book is detailed and academic, it discusses police and state spying in early New Zealand history and was written to appeal to specialists in New Zealand history.

The cover of Secret History features a historic photograph of a ‘swaggering detective’ and police on Parliament grounds during the 1951 waterfront confrontation. A dense black background and the dark and silvered historic image are used to evoke the heaviness of being observed by the the police state. Beneath the book jacket the black buckram case is blind debossed with the words ‘Secret History’ in morse code, it gives little away, a secret to be deciphered.

The period covered by the book has quite a diverse range of type styles – from ornate Victorian through to modernism. To anchor the typography to the content, the cover text and title styles of of this history book design are inspired by Police internal communications. Gill Sans, a typeface popular from the late 1920s is frequently used – capitalised, bold and sans-serif. The impression it gives is no-nonsense, authoritative and utilitarian. The copy of this weighty volume is set in Freight text pro, a humanist serif that pairs well with humanist sans-serif Gill Sans. Sitting at over 400 pages, well-set type with attention to detail was critical to creating an enjoyable reader experience.

It was important that the design of this title communicates the genre of history, so the design of the layouts are clean and classic. The challenge of the image sections was how to create naturally flowing and balanced spreads with images of various shapes and sizes that needed to appear in the specific order they were referred to in the text.

Richard Hill and Steven Loveridge

Published by Auckland University Press, 2023

ISBN: 9781869409852