Dear House Guests,
We all judge books by their covers. And perhaps we should: great cover designers know exactly what they’re doing when they distill a book’s themes into a slick, eye-catching visual package. They’re fluent in a different language—one of intrigue, beauty, and visceral reactions. Images that stop you mid-browse, posing questions you desperately need answered by the text.
Regina Flath, VP, Executive Art Director at Del Rey, is one of these artists. She joins us today to share a peek into her process, with works including the million-copy bestseller Alchemised, the stunning origami jacket of Water Moon, and many other titles that benefit from her particular witchy touch.
What does an Art Director do?
I oversee all of the Del Rey covers, and it is usually my decision to assign books either to myself or to other designers on the team. Some people will come to me and say, “Hey, I saw this book is coming up. I would love to work on it,” and I’m usually like, “Bless. Please take it.”
Each individual art team member is working on between 5 and 15 titles per span, and we have 3 spans a year. Each span is going to be in a different stage of the process as we’re working, so one span is going to the printer, one span is doing revisions, one span is just getting off the ground.
Primarily, my job is conceiving of the idea of what a package will be. A lot of times I’m having illustrators or other designers execute on that idea. Sometimes I’m executing it, sometimes it’s a combo.
I’m collaborating with the editorial and publishing team to get the broad strokes of what the package will be, and then I’m collaborating with the editor and the author to really make sure all the details are editorially correct.
Overall, as an art director, I’m making sure the quality of the art is up to the level it needs to be, that everything looks beautiful.
The Initial Process
With every title under the RH umbrella, we have what’s called a Cover Conference, where the editorial and publishing teams come to the art team and say this is our title, this is what it’s about. Here’s how we want to position it, this is what we’re thinking for the package, here are some references, some comp titles—whatever they have to give us. It could be a Pinterest board. It could be images of other covers. Maybe the author has a particular piece of art that they’re really jazzed about and they’re like, “This is the vibe.”
Alchemised: Early Drafts
Because Alchemised is such a long word, I was thinking, “OK, how do I do some interesting type, and also create a moody package that is going to give you the breadth of the world?” I wanted to be very elegant. I wanted to have a lot of crossover appeal. So I had the type very designed, kind of on a diagonal across the title.
Internally, we liked the direction. But when we shared it with the author [SenLinYu], they thought, “This is not really the right look. It’s a little too dark academia.” So we traditionally Conferenced it [to learn] what the author was thinking, what the publishing team was thinking, etc.
Alchemised: Cover
From there, I pitched artist samples, and this is pretty run-of-the-mill for us: If we know we want to commission art, I will do what I call the Cover Strategy Document, which is kind of like a Cover Conference, but in reverse. So the editors Conference the title, they tell me what they want. And then I come back to them and I give them my interpretation of what they want—my inspiration images, my ideas for artists, in this case early typography ideas. Once we had those initial artist samples, those were shared with the author. The author really liked Eva Eller, who’s the illustrator on the book. Then we went into the sketches phase with Eva to get to what would eventually be the final cover. And while Eva was sketching, I was doing layout and type design.
Alchemised: Reverse Jacket
[SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALCHEMISED: Read on at your own risk.]
I knew that amnesia was still going to be a big part of the story—Helena coming to find out who Kaine really was, his role in the book. I really wanted to have a reverse jacket illustration that would be like the interior of her mind—so when you take the jacket off, it’s like you’re seeing inside her head a little bit.
That’s why the reverse jacket has that cloudy hedge maze with Kaine in the middle: it’s representing this journey that she’s taking through her memories along with Kaine. The reverse jacket was done by the phenomenal illustrator Alex Hovey.
In the maze, there are all of these different Easter eggs. The sun crest is there, syringes. We went through a lot of sketches—the maze changed shape a lot.
I did get help from the editor and the author to make sure the symbols we were including made sense, and there was nothing too spoilery. ‘Cause in the end, if you’re really savvy, you can look at that illustration and put together a lot of information about what happens to Helena.
Water Moon: Origami Jacket
I always read the books [before I start designing]. A lot of the time, the books don’t exist yet when I have to start working on them, so I read whatever I can.
It is my firm belief that as a designer, when you can connect with the text and actually get it into your noggin, you can make stronger work because you can connect themes. The images make sense, because you have them within the context of the book.
So I read Water Moon, and it was such a delight. It changed my brain chemistry. It was so cozy and magical. One moment we’re going through a puddle, and the next moment we’re in the Large Hadron Collider.
It’s about a pawn shop where you can pawn your regrets. And they get to a point in Water Moon where they realize, “We need to change a choice, so we’ve got to see the guy who can fold time like origami so we can make that choice.” I was like “Origami! I got it.”
I have a very hilarious concept sketch. I like to think of it as “humble beginnings” of what this concept would be.
When I pitched this, I said, “What if we could print, on the reverse of the jacket, an illustration of the characters far apart, that when folded, created a boat you could put your regrets into and sail away?”
I looked for origami books that we had done before. I found this author, Nick, who was in England. He’s a very wonderful, older British gentleman. When I first reached out, it was early on in the project. And I was like, “Here’s the deal. I need you to make this turn into a boat. No cuts. We have to fold the jacket as-is. The minute you have to get another tool, the whole magic falls apart.”
But I needed the exact dimensions of the jacket, so that took a while.
And Nick doesn’t get back to me right away. [When he does, he says,] “Oh, sorry, I’m in the hospital because I had a heart attack.”
I was like, “Oh my god. I killed Nick.”
I didn’t kill Nick. He was fine.
Literally two weeks later he sent the origami instructions and the layout for where the folds need to be. Then, I needed to give that to the illustrator, Haylee Morice, who was going to do the art so that the characters could meet in the boat [when it was folded].
Mundane Magic: Witchy Touches
I work nearly exclusively on Del Rey, but because of the way the Random House Art Department is, we can kind of work on whatever we want. Paolo [Pepe], our Creative Director, is really supportive of us crosspollinating.
I feel like most of the team knows I’m a spooky lady. So if there are witches, magic, monsters . . . summon me. I want to be there!
So I learned from one of the other art directors that Harmony, Rodale, and Convergent had a book called Mundane Magic that needed a cover. It’s about how to live your life with ADHD, but use magic and ritual to do it.
Anna [Bauer] is our art director for this project, and I was like, “Anna, please, please let me work on this. I have 10 ideas right now.” She was like, “Yeah, go for it.”
It’s all just stock illustration that I put together, but if you’re deeply entrenched in the tarot like I am, you’ll recognize the Ace of Wands hand. But instead of an Ace of Wands, it’s a little duster, ‘cause we’re dustin’.
We’ve got witches top to bottom on this project. Author’s a witch. Art director’s a witch. You can’t escape them. They’re everywhere. You, too, can be a witch!
Innamorata: Necklace of Teeth
I was the art director on this project. The designer is Sophia Chunn, who’s so super talented. One of my contributions to the book was that they knew they wanted sprayed edges. And in Innamorata, the main character Agnes is part of the House of Teeth. There’s this whole thing about the bodies being divided by their different elements. And I was like, “What if we show the teeth necklace?”
Sophia was like, “Girl, I don’t know.” And I was like, “Trust me. I know.” So I put together all these reference images, and she sent it to the illustrator, Babs Webb. The illustrator did a bang-up job. We were surprised and delighted about how lovely it came out.
Quick Hits
What’s one thing about your job that people outside publishing would be surprised by?
I feel like I always see online people being like, “The author doesn’t have a say in their cover.” That is the most patently false thing ever. I’ve never, in the history of my career—and I’m ancient and terrible—experienced an author unhappy with their cover and then they ran it anyway.
What’s always on your desk or in your bag during the work day?
I always have my vessels for my beverages. I’ve got my coffee. I have this really fun canteen for my water.
I always have my Kindle because I’m reading a billion manuscripts at any time and all my editors—bless them—they know that I am not a speed reader, so they try to give me my manuscripts well in advance so my slow little eyeballs can read them and process them and come up with cool ideas.
My Wacom pen, I’ve always got that.
What are you reading right now?
I am reading the next book by Ava Reid, Necromantica. It’s the second book in the House of Teeth duology. [Innamorata, the first book in the duology, hits shelves March 17, 2026.]
She’s gross. There’s piles of bodies. There’s a lot of body horror. But up to where I’m at right now, it’s really giving me my favorite horror genre vibe, which is “good for her.”
Are there any covers you wish you’d designed?
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin (Tor)
The cover design is by Esther Kim. This cover has lived rent-free in my mind since I saw it years ago. It is genius. Like, ewwww!
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager)
This was designed by Owen Corrigan. Owen, you’re a genius. This book was surreal and disgusting and moving and beautiful. I picked up this book for the cover. I like to do that sometimes. I like to buy a book just for the cover and then see if it ends up being what I expect it to be. And this one, by the time I finished the book, I was like, “How do I do this? How do I connect the dots in such a brilliant way on a cover?” It’s so moody and evocative.
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig (Orbit Books)
I also wish I had done this one, but I know who did it, it’s a good buddy, Lisa Marie Pompilio, who works at Orbit Books with my good friend Lauren Panepinto, who’s the Creative Director there.
This book is beautiful. I know it was done as a photo shoot. It is gorgeous. The type design, the whole package. It really is very indicative of Lisa’s work. I love everything that she does.
For more of Regina Flath’s work, visit her website, follow her Instagram, or browse the shelves of your local bookstore.
What's the last book you picked up purely because of the cover?
Until next time,
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Many more posts about covers please! I love covers almost as much as the innards.
Ooh. I'm not there, but do my books when (not if I hope) they're being published! Gorgeous work! Great piece.