Cover Meeting with Jack Smyth

Charlotte Abrams Simpson is one of the Art Directors at the Orion publishing group. She left Wolverhampton and moved to London at 18 to pursue her passion for art and design – studying at Central St Martins and the University for Creative Arts Epsom. Predominantly designing for the leading commercial titles for authors such as Anton Du Beke, Lorraine Kelly and Veronica Henry. Her experience spans 18 years working in-house and freelance for UK major publishing houses including Harper Collins and Penguin Random House. Charlotte was also nominated for Designer of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2023. Charlotte’s mission is to ensure the cover design industry continues to expand its diverse and talented pool of designers and to contribute to growing a community supporting underrepresented groups through mentorship schemes. She is a mentor for the Design Publishing Inclusivity initiative 2024 as well as her work curating The Change the Story Design Festival – supported by a collective of designers at Hachette. Cover Meeting was hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.

Craig Oldham has been named by his peers as one of the most influential designers working in the UK, and has written books on a range of topics, including education, visual culture, film, and politics. He runs his eponymous and pedagogic creative practice, Office Of Craig, in Manchester and he’s also the creative director of Rough Trade Books. Selected Books: Leeds Postcards (Four Corners Books) 2018. Oh Shit What Now?! (Laurence King) 2018. They Live: A Visual and Cultural Awakening (Rough Trade Books) 2019. The Shining: A Visual and Cultural Haunting (Rough Trade Books) 2022. In Loving Memory Of Work (Common Practices / Rough Trade Books) 2024 third edition. Follow Craig on Instagram @officeofcraig. Cover Meeting was hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.

Sarah Wasley is the Production Director and Design Director of Granta Books.  Sarah began her career at The Women’s Press in 1987 as a receptionist and sales assistant, before moving to Quartet Books in the early 90s. There, she worked as an assistant in production, rights, and publicity. She later progressed to Production Manager, where she was based in the design studio, gaining invaluable insight into the cover design process—experience that helped her secure her current role at Granta Books, where she has been since 2000. Sarah’s role is a hybrid of Production Director and Design Director. She oversees all of Granta’s cover design, working closely with a team of freelance graphic designers. She also manages the production and printing of both the Granta Books list and their renowned literary publication, Granta Magazine of New Writing. Follow Sarah on Instagram @wasley.sarah. Cover Meeting was hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.

In the first episode of season 2, we speak with Jack Smyth – a freelance designer and illustrator from Ireland. His clients include Penguin Random House, Faber & Faber, Harpercollins, Granta, Daunt Books, Simon & Schuster, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Politico and The Atlantic. He has previously worked inhouse at 4th Estate, Simon & Schuster, Little, Brown and Tower Records and holds an MA in Graphic Design from Kingston University. In 2024, he was named the designer of the year at the British Book Awards. He has received 9 ABCD awards, a BBDPA award and has been featured in Creative Review, It's Nice That, Communication Arts and the 100 Archive. He lives in Dublin with his wife and cat. Cover Meeting was 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.

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.

Jamie Keenan is a book cover designer who has been freelancing since setting up his own studio in 1998. He has since designed covers for Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Pullman, A M Homes, Franz Kafka, Tess Gunty and thousands of others. Jamie also co-founded the Academy Of British Cover Design (ABCD) awards along with Jon Gray. The awards have been running since 2014 and has helped bring the cover design community together to celebrate the fantastic work that’s being done by designers in the UK. You can see a selection of Jamie’s work on his website keenandesign.com and follow him on Twitter @MrKeenan or over on Instagram @misterkeenan. To see the incredible winners and shortlists from the past ten years of the ABCD awards be sure to visit their website abcoverd.co.uk. To read the conversation between Jamie and US based designer Pablo Delcan, visit Lithub here. Cover Meeting is 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.  

James Jones is an award-winning art director, designer and illustrator who freelances for publishers all over the world. James has worked at Orion Publishing Group, Vintage Books, and as Art Director at both Oneworld Publications and Head of Zeus. His work has been recognised by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Type Directors Club, Design Observer, The Academy of British Cover Design and the World Illustration Awards. James is also the illustrator of several picture books including The Perfect Fit, One More Try and The Odd Fish. To see James’ work head to his website at jamesjonesbookdesign.com, or follow him on twitter and instagram. To follow James and his wife Naomi’s picture book work be sure to follow @naomiandjamesjones on Instagram where there’s regular updates on their work together. For something a bit different, we spoke in passing about James’ latest project Wildsole sandals – a newly formed barefoot adventure sandal company. If you’d like to find out more, visit wildsolesandals.com where you can also get 10% off any purchases using the discount code COVERMEETING. Links and details are in the show notes. Follow Cover Meeting on Twitter, Instagram and now Threads @CoverMeetingPod for news about upcoming episodes. Cover Meeting was hosted by Steve Leard and produced by James Ede of beheard.org.uk.