TDC Book Night 2018 : ALL WOMEN!
I’m going to break with tradition and put up a spur of the moment photo post because last night was the first ever all-women Type Directors Club Book Night!!! As some of you know, this blog started out with my collecting women designers’ covers, to celebrate their unsung work.
Every year TDC gathers three book art directors, who are making great work, and asks them to talk about it (usually to a room full of their peers and design students). And this year, I can’t pass up the opportunity to celebrate TDC’s first ever (hopefully not last) all-women panel.
The women featured were Lauren Panepinto, Ingsu Liu, and Grace Hea Eun Han. Read their bios below and be impressed, because they are impressive. My Apologies to Ingsu and Grace for not having pictures of their presentations.
The show was sold out and moved to a larger space, so I'm guessing that it can only be called a huge success. Thanks TDC!
After 16 years designing and art directing book covers, Lauren Panepinto has worked in every publishing genre and collaborated with every style of artist. As the Creative Director of the Orbit Books division of Hachette Books for the past ten years, she has been trying to merge the worlds of genre and commercial publishing and figure out what SciFi/Fantasy publishing looks like in the present world of mainstream “geek” media.
Ingsu Liu is VP Executive Art Director at W. W. Norton and Company. Born in Taiwan, Ingsu moved to the United States at the age of 14. She received her BFA from Pratt Institute and immediately began her career in Publishing with Penguin Books; she then moved onto William Morrow Books, Vintage Books/Random House, and in 1996 began working at W. W. Norton & Company. She frequently works with such authors as Neil Gaiman, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Greenblatt, Michael Lewis, Mary Roach and Chuck Palahniuk. Ingsu’s work has been exhibited in New York Times Best Covers, AIGA 50/50, Print magazine, Communication Arts, and The New York Book Show.
Grace Hea Eun Han graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2013 and currently works as an associate art director at Riverhead Books, an imprint at Penguin Random House. She has worked on projects for clients including Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Bloomingdales, and The New York Times.
Lauren explaining the strategy of getting the bad-ass women genre to accept a bad-ass dude on a cover. Moving genres forward is a big part of being a cover designer/art director. It was great to have Lauren bring this to her TDC talk. Here is a link to Lauren's post about the process of that cover.
In an ever more opinionated world, designers get more feedback then ever before. Lauren touches on the collaborative aspects of art directing in a complex media landscape, where your audience is comparing your work to TV, film, and even their favorite video games.
Ingsu Liu's presentation contained, animation, humor, and was built around her personal story. A story that has as much to do with immigration, breaking with family expectations, as it did with her formidable skills as mentor and art director. Ingsu photo courtesy of Jess Morphew. Map photo courtesy of Nicole Caputo, She Designs Books
Grace Han's presentation began with her revealing her early need to make book covers as a student. She also talked about her preference for dimensional cut paper covers, her ever-evolving typography skills, and how she sometimes has to step away from the computer to create. Grace photos courtesy of Jess Morphew.
Chris Sergio (TDC Board Member) asks Grace, Ingsu, and Lauren about their careers after the talk. Topics included; first jobs, freelance, designing un-written books, and busting down doors.