Illustrated by Meghann Stephenson
When we last checked in on Meghann Stephenson, she was telling us about her new collection, Vacation, a line of modern essentials, such as the perfect tee and moto jacket. But, like so many New Yorkers, she’s a prolific Renaissance women and also doubles as an in-demand fashion illustrator. Plus, Stephenson is pretty awesome at painting covers of book covers — just check out the slideshow above.

Stephenson didn’t purposely set out to do a literary series. It started when clients began asking her to do product illustrations, “which involved a lot of very small, detailed, hand-painted copy,” she explains. “I wanted to get better at hand-painting typography and had an inspiration file filled with these vintage books. I started copying them just as practice for myself but was so surprised with how well they translated in watercolor. There’s a kind of ownership that happens when you paint something and I loved the idea of creating this perfect library for myself.”

She’s since painted everything from Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Susann classics to texts including H.J. Eysenck’s Sense and Nonsense in Psychology and The Troublesome Helpmate: A History of Misogyny in Literature by Katharine M. Rogers. If she had to pick a favorite, though? It comes down to two: “I’d have to say it’s a tie between The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, because the cover design is so detailed and beautiful, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, because I love how strange the warped type is,” she says. “They both look so different from the original in watercolor.”

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