Book Cover of the Month

I just love the cover of Kaikeyi. The orange and black colors are striking as is the silhouette of the character Kaikeyi. Lisa Marie Pompilio is the artist who designed the cover. She is the Associate Art Director at Orbit Books and Redhook in Brooklyn, NY. Pompilio designs covers for books of all genres and uses Photoshop to create her designs. 

In this installment of my book cover of the month series I want to talk about the book cover artist. I have wanted for awhile to write posts about book cover designers but didn't know how to approach the topic. Book cover of the month is a good way to get started.

Pompilio grew up in a family with a printing shop business. She worked with the linotype and read books at the library across the street from the business. It was at the library where she decided that she wanted to design book covers. After working with horses until she was 25, she went to art school and graduated from the School of Visual Arts. Pompilio had internships with photographers and at The Onion. Her first publishing job was with St. Martin's Press where she designed multi-genre book covers for 8 years. Her next job was with Orbit Books where she works today. 

The publisher will decide whether the book cover will be photographic or illustrated. Pompilio then produces several designs and presents them at the weekly cover meeting at Orbit. In these meetings the cover design can either be approved or require further development. 

To see other book covers that she has designed, check out her Twitter feed here.  Some of these covers are so pretty that I am going to have to read the books.