Emily TahaBurt is an artist and illustrator currently residing between Baltimore (USA) and Cairo (Egypt). Her previous commissions include illustrations for Lamplight Magazine, Trampoline Poetry, and a number of small businesses across Ireland and the USA.

Holly Ovenden is an award-winning freelance book cover designer and illustrator. She works with large and independent publishers both in the UK and internationally. Previously Holly designed book covers in-house at Penguin General a literary imprint of Penguin Random House and Bloomsbury.  

She has won two ABCD Awards and was shortlisted for Designer of the Year in 2021, as well as being named as a Bookseller Rising Star. Her work has been featured in AIGA Eye on Design, the Guardian, Print Magazine, Creative Review, Type Director’s Club and New York Magazine’s Strategist.  

Anna Morrison is a UK-based book cover designer, art director and sometime illustrator.  She has spent many years working in-house for various publishers such as Penguin Random House, 4th Estate and Pushkin Press. Morrison is now freelance and work for many publishers worldwide. 

Hey there! I am Simona, a 26-year-old Bulgarian Illustrator, currently based in Lisbon. I love life, colour, and art in any shape it may come. You can recognize my work by the bright splashes of colour and the pop art references. I find a lot of inspiration in the brave and openminded wave of the 70s from its colours to its beliefs. I am always looking for inspiration in what’s around me and I love playing around with everyday objects as my motives. I am currently working on the The Vanitas and Other Tales by Jake Kendall.  

Ishy Walters works as an illustrator and mural artist from her home in the hills of NE Scotland.  With artists on both sides of the family she has always drawn and painted wherever she has found herself living or travelling and likes to explore different styles and mediums to create a unique response to each new project.

As a high functioning dyslexic with dyscalculia (to use the technical jargon) Ishy is fascinated by the power of visual learning. Because we can record and retrieve highly complex concepts through easily recalled images, communicate many layers of information in one picture, and trigger all our other senses with sight, she believes there is a much greater potential for the visual arts in both education and the work place.  That pictures can transcend the boundaries of language, society, and culture, and connect people across these chasms is a constant motivation for her work.

Ishy’s Website

With much love for detail and realism, Mariam Abbas enjoys portraying subjects related to her hometown – Dubai. Pointillism would be her preferred skill, and with it she depicts old Arabic urban spaces in hopes of shedding light on their beauty.

The artist’s feature on the official Instagram account is the highlight of her career, and among her clientele are Etihad Airways, KitKat Arabia, and Expo Milano – Italy.

Mariam on Instagram

Elena Hormiga is an award winning graphic designer and illustrator in Madrid. Her fun pictures are imbued with irony and metaphor. She studied and worked as an engineer and later turned to illustration. She currently works creating images for stories, articles and posters. She also enjoys writing, cooking and origami. Her work can be found at Elena’s Work .

Mark Ecob is Art Director and founder of Mecob Design Ltd. The company has worked with a whole range of leading publishers on individual titles through to author rebrands. Clients have included Amazon Publishing, Penguin Random House and Faber & Faber. Mark also has extensive experience in designing book covers for self-publishing clients, and is Associate Art Director for crowd-sourced publisher Unbound. When he’s not designing books, he’s teaching at Bath Spa University. www.mecob.co.uk

James Jones is an award-winning freelance Art Director and Designer working with publishers and clients all around the world. Along with his own freelance work, he is also the Art Director for Head of Zeus, overseeing their Non Fiction imprints. Previously he was Art Director for Oneworld Publications, BBIA Independent Publisher of the Year, IPG Trade Publisher of the Year and Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2015 and 2016. Prior to that James worked at Vintage Books for Penguin Random House, and before that at Orion Publishing Group for Hachette.

James’ work has been recognised by AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), Type Directors Club, Design Observer and the ABCD (The Academy of British Cover Design) awards amongst others. James was named as one of the Bookseller’s 2014 Rising Stars, its annual list of the best and brightest young talent in publishing.

James’s Portfolio