Cover Meeting

In this episode Cover Meeting speaks with Micaela Alcaino, a book cover designer and illustrator who relocated from her home in Sydney, Australia to London in 2013. Selected as one of The Booksellers Rising Stars of 2021, named Designer of the Year at the British Book Awards 2022, and named in The Bookseller 150 most influential people in publishing in 2022, she has almost a decade of experience in her field working for both Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, before venturing into the world of freelancing in 2018. She currently works on projects in collaboration with most of the big publishing houses worldwide. Her work is characterized by a unique blend of creativity and artistry, shaped by her love of travel, mixed cultural heritage, and appreciation of the fine arts. In the episode we talk about life as a freelancer, the process behind creating covers and the research that goes into it, artificial intelligence and it's potential impact on book cover design and publishing and publishing's diversity problem. You can read Micaela's recent article on artificial intelligence here. Micaela also mention DPI when we were discussing the lack of diversity in publishing. DPI as an impactful mentorship initiative based in the UK for under-represented creatives and have assembled leading designers across the publishing industry as mentors. Their mission is supporting creatives from under-represented groups to develop the skills and acumen to pursue a career in the world of book design, while also offering existing designers in the industry advice on career progression. Visit their website to find out more. Cover Meeting was hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.

Mike Dempsey has been a practising graphic designer since 1964. From the late sixties he worked as an Art Director for two leading British publishing houses. In 1979 he founded the design consultancy Carroll & Dempsey, which later became CDT Design Ltd. His work has earned him many awards and in 2012 he was presented with a special Black Pencil for the most awarded designer in D&AD’s 50-year history. He’s acted as Design Advisor to the Department of Culture Media & Sport, was appointed consultant Art Director by the Royal Mail to create the two-year Millennium stamp programme and was the Art Director of the Royal Society of Arts Journal from 1997 to 2002. He’s written features for Eye Magazine, Design Week, Creative Review, The Times and many more. He was made a Royal Designer for Industry in 1994 and was elected a member of Alliance Graphic International in 1998. He was the President of D&AD in 1997/98, was Master of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry from 2005 to 2007 and was the external design advisor to the Design Council. He left CDT at the end of 2007 to form Studio Dempsey – and now lives and works in both London and Dorset. Mike also hosts RDIinsights – a recorded series he devised in 2006, featuring interviews with world-class Royal Designers for Industry across all disciplines. Search and listen to the shows on Apple and Spotify. You can follow Mike on Twitter @graphicjourney. You can also follow him on Instagram @studiodempsey. His blog is full of interesting articles which you can find here.

To read Mike’s four-part blog post on cover design here. For those who haven’t seen it, click here for Tom Gauld’s brilliant piece about cover design. Cover Meeting is hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.

In this last episode of Season One, we speak with Tree Abraham – a brilliant book designer, illustrator and writer. Tree was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada before studying graphic design in the UK and interning at various publishers in London. Tree then went on to work in New York City where she’s been ever since, working for Abrams, Bloomsbury and Grand Central Publishing. Tree is now an Art Director for Amazon Publishing. Tree is also a writer and her first book Cyclettes came out in 2022. We speak about studying in the UK, what it’s like living and working in New York City, Tree’s process, working your way through the ranks at a publishers, the benefits of working on more commercial titles and about Tree’s book Cyclettes. Visit Tree’s website to see her work and follow her on Instagram. Read about Tree’s process when producing the covers for Cyclettes over on Spine Magazine. Watch Neil Buchanan on Art Attack that we spoke about during the podcast here. Cover Meeting was hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.

Suzanne Dean is a Creative Director who has worked at Vintage Books for over twenty years. She has created covers for iconic titles and bestsellers from The Handmaid’s Tale, Entangled Life and Sapiens to H is for Hawk, Atonement and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. She’s also worked with a wide range of fantastic authors including Haruki Murakami, Toni Morrison and Julian Barnes. Her designs have been recognised by many, including the ABCD awards, The British Book Design and Production Awards and the V&A Illustration Awards. This year Suzanne also won Designer of the Year at The British Book Awards 2023. In this episode we talk about art direction, managing a team of designers, how Vintage approach cover design, working with illustrators and freelancers, Suzanne’s work with Noma Bar for Margaret Atwood’s covers and advice for students. To see a selection of Suzanne’s work, please visit her website at suzannedean.co.uk. You can also follow Suzanne on Instagram at suzanneldean. If you don’t already, I’d highly recommend following the Vintage design team on Instagram as they’re really good at regularly posting covers, but I think you get a really great sense of the quality of work that’s produced by Suzanne and her team – so make sure to follow them @vintagebooksdesign

Cover Meeting was hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.

Zoe Norvell has been in the book publishing world since she graduated from the Pratt Institute in 2011. Her very first job was an internship with Rodrigo Corral’s studio. From there, she worked at Simon & Schuster before moving to Penguin Random House. In 2015, she left to become a full-time freelancer. In 2022 she launched a new subdivision of her book business that focuses on book interiors. This section of her business can be found at ineedabookinterior.com. In 2023, she launched ineedabookcover.com, a website that acts as both a comprehensive directory (featuring nearly 300 book cover designers) but also an archive of 2,000 book covers. Since the start of her career, Zoe has designed nearly 1,000 book covers for all different kinds of clients. Zoe now lives and works back in her hometown of Washington DC. Please visit her website at zoenorvell.com where you’ll find links to see her brilliant work over on Pinterest, but also make sure you follow Zoe on Instagram @zoenorvell.