Creative Lives: Coralie Bickford-Smith, author, illustrator and book designer

Of the many full time book designers working at Penguin Random House, Coralie Bickford-Smith has managed to build a reputation that now exists independently of the iconic publishing house. We met up with her recently to talk about how she’s been able to balance in-house, freelance and personal work across design, illustration and writing, and the biggest challenges she's encountered along the way. Since joining the Penguin Random House team in 2002, Coralie has been behind some of the best-loved designs to emerge in recent years; namely her work on the clothbound classics series. Created using age-old techniques, the books are Defined by their pared back, pattern-based covers in minimal colour palettes. while most hardback editions last for a year’s print run before becoming paperbacks, many of Coralie’s designs are still available in their original format, 11 years later – a testament to their tireless popularity. Coralie’s knowledge of historic book design processes date back to her student days at the university of reading, where she earned a degree in typography and graphic communication. Fearing that pursuing a career in book design would limit her options further down the line, she started out in commercial design at an agency. We hear her reflect on her journey, and her wisdom for budding designers. ... This episode of Creative Lives was was presented by Indi Davies and the editor was Ivor Manly. Lecture in Progress is made possible with the support of a number of brand patrons – they include GF Smith, Squarespace and The Paul Smith Foundation. Check out lectureinprogress.com for more details.