Lesley Worrell is senior designer at Tor/Forge Books/Macmillan in New York, NY. Her recent work focuses on teen sci-fi/fantasy fiction. Lesley studied at NYU and Parsons School of Design, and formerly worked at St. Martin’s Press and Penguin Random House. Her designs have been recognized by She Designs Books and Spine Magazine.
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| Lesley Worrell (center 2nd row) is introduced by Laurent Linn (at right 1st row), with ASL interpreter Teresa Fritschy (at left 1st row) |
Lesley shares that their primary focus is Science Fiction and Fantasy teen books - and shares some of the illustrated book covers she has art directed since 2019.
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| 13 illustrated YA novels art directed by Lesley Worrell |
Where do you start if you want to do YA illustrated covers?
Lesley talks about illustrators doing both adult and teen covers, and shows some side-by-side examples. She discusses the trend of cartoony-style starting with adult titles, and how that's happening now in YA covers.
It's important to have samples in your portfolio. Consider illustrating classic YA novels, or even adult novels that you read in high school.
Exposure. Super important for art directors to see your work. Right now, in pandemic, with people working from home, post cards aren't the best choice. Emails - not so much. What does work for her? Social media plays important role in her discovering illustrators to work with.
If Lesley see a cover she likes, she follows that illustrator of cover.
Platforms she's on: instagram and twitter
She does bookmark illustrators she would love to work with, and says it helps when artists show up on her feed.
"art directors do follow artists on social media."
Final bit of advice: You don't need tons of followers on social media - that's not necessary. It's not indicative of the quality of your work.
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