Lauren Panepinto, Creative Director, VP Orbit Books

After 18 years designing and art directing book covers, Lauren Panepinto has worked in every publishing genre and collaborated with artists of all disciplines. As the Creative Director and Vice President of the Orbit Books division of Hachette Books for the past ten years, she has been developing covers in Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Thrillers. She has designed bestselling covers for Iain Banks, Mira Grant, James S. A. Corey, Brent Weeks, and Margaret Atwood, among many others. Not content to just design covers, Lauren has written about science fiction and fantasy art for ImagineFX magazine, io9.com, and as a columnist at Muddy Colors. Lauren has been very active in the role of art business education, not only at a panelist, presenter, and portfolio reviewer at SDCC, NYCC, Spectrum, and Illuxcon, but also as a founding member of the Art Business Education group Drawn & Drafted. She is an adjunct professor in the graduate program at NYU. She is a frequent art competition judge, most recently for the Society of Illustrators, Infected by Art, and others. She is also the cofounder of the online art gallery Every Day Original. Lauren graduated from The School of Visual Arts with a degree in Graphic Design and Advertising. She has worked in fashion (Perry Ellis), television (MTV), and for boutique design firms, but found her true calling in book publishing. She has worked at St. Martin's Press/Picador Books, and at Doubleday/Random House. orbitbooks.net twitter.com/orbitbooks instagram.com/orbitbooks_uk/ Portrait photo ©AllanAmato