Catherine Leonardo

Catherine Leonardo – Designer

Books are my passion! Clients include Penguin Random House and Oxford University Press. I design book interiors and covers.

Overview

I am an award-winning graphic designer specializing in trade and academic book interiors, covers, and typesetting for fiction and non-fiction projects. I have had over 25 years experience designing books in New York City for major publishing houses and for the University of New Mexico Press.

Genres: fiction, poetry, popular modern trade, art, photography, architecture, guide books, history, biography, anthropology, archaeology, indigenous studies, American studies, the American West.

My clients include Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Scholastic Inc., Workman Publishing, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Co., Oxford University Press, and University of New Mexico Press.​​​​​​​

In addition to large publishing houses, I offer professional design and typesetting for independent publishers and self-publishers.

I look forward to hearing about your project! My goal is to assist you in achieving your publishing dreams.
Services
Non-Fiction
Architecture Art History Inspirational Photography
Fiction
Classics Literary Fiction Poetry
Languages
English
Awards
  • Association of University Presses: Winner 2018, Trade Illustrated for Early Churches of Mexico
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: Winner 2017, Guide Books for North American Hummingbirds: An Identification Guide
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: 1st Finalist 2017, Children and Young Adult for Amazing Paper Airplanes: The Craft and Science of Flight
  • Pubwest Book Design Awards: Gold Winner 2016, Adult Trade Book, Illustrated for Irby Brown: Southwest Landscape Paintings
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: Winner 2016, Cover and Jacket Design for Clovis Caches: Recent Discoveries and New Research
  • Pubwest Book Design Awards: Silver Winner 2016, Guide Book for North American Hummingbirds: An Identification Guide
  • New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards: 1st Place 2016, Best Cover Design Large Format for Clovis Caches: Recent Discoveries and New Research
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: Finalist 2016, Cover and Jacket Design for Irby Brown: Southwest Landscape Paintings
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: Winner 2015, Scholarly, Technical Books for Clovis Caches: Recent Discoveries and New Research
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: 1st Finalist 2015, Art and Photography for The Memory of Stone: Meditations on the Canyons of the West
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: Finalist 2014, Art and Photography for Close to Home: Photographs
  • Southwest Book Design Awards: Finalist 2014, Trade Book Illustrated for Sagrado: A Photopoetics Across the Chicano Homeland
  • New York Book Show Award: 1st Place 2000 for Building Language for Literacy & Side by Side Programs
Certifications
  • BA Humanities Major, Fine Arts Minor
  • MAT English and Fine Art
  • Graphic Design: Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, Noble Desktop, NYC

Work experience

University of New Mexico Press

May, 2012 — Jun, 2017 (about 5 years)

Fiction and non-fiction trade and academic design for covers, dust jackets, and
interiors for one, two, and four-color books; book composition and production
management from manuscript to delivery of hardcover and/or paperback editions.

Oxford University Press

Nov, 2009 — Apr, 2010 (5 months)

Designed academic and trade book interiors; hired and art directed freelance designers.

Self-employed

Feb, 2009 — Present

My clients include Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Scholastic Inc., Workman Publishing, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Co., Oxford University Press, and University of New Mexico Press.

Book Designs for Penguin group USA Publishers Imprints: Gotham, ROC, Hudson St. Press, Celebra, NAL, Penguin Poets, and Plume.

Random House Publishing

Nov, 2007 — Jan, 2009 (about 1 year)

Designed interiors for fiction and non-fiction hardcover, trade, and mass market adult
titles—one, two, and four-color books­­—Bantam Dell Division. Corrected all stages of
proof. Hired and art directed freelance designers and illustrators, managed art budget.

Workman Publishing

Aug, 2006 — Nov, 2007 (over 1 year)

Provided book composition in InDesign; implemented corrections for all passes;
one, two, and four-color books, fiction and non-fiction trade, cookbooks, and calendars.

EPS Studio, Nancy Hall, Inc. and GGS Book Services

May, 2004 — Aug, 2006 (over 2 years)

Design, layout and production.

Macmillan/Mcgraw-Hill Company

Sep, 2000 — May, 2003 (over 2 years)

Designed interior text and layouts for four-color textbooks and supplementary materials; core member of prototype team. Art directed in-house designers and outside studios; hired and art directed illustrators and photographers.

Scholastic Inc.

Aug, 1997 — Jun, 2000 (almost 3 years)

Designed four-color educational books, covers, packaging, magazines; core member
of prototype team; hired and art directed freelance designers and outside vendors.

Portfolio

Napoleon in Egypt

Paul Strathern

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte, only twenty-eight, set sail for Egypt with 335 ships, 40,000 soldiers, and a collection of scholars, artists, and scientists to establish an eastern empire. He saw himself as a liberator, freeing the Egyptians from oppression. But ... read more
Un lugar sagrado, a sacred place where two or more are gathered in the name of community, can be found almost anywhere and yet it is elusive: a charro arena behind a rock quarry, on the pilgrimage trail to Chimayó, a curandero's shrine in South Texas, or at a ... read more
Pilgrimage to ritually significant places is a part of daily life in the Maya world. These journeys involve important social and practical concerns, such as the maintenance of food sources and world order. Frequent pilgrimages to ceremonial hills to pay offeri... read more
The earliest European accounts of Brazil's indigenous inhabitants focused on the natives' startling appearance and conduct--especially their nakedness and cannibalistic rituals--and on the process of converting them to clothed, docile Christian vassals. This v... read more
The early history of photography in America coincided with the Euro-American settlement of the West. This thoughtful book argues that the rich history of western photography cannot be understood by focusing solely on the handful of well-known photographers who... read more
Winner of the 2016 A. M. Pate, Jr. Award in Civil War History from the the Fort Worth Civil War Round TableWinner of the 2016 Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez Award from the Historical Society of New MexicoThe Civil War in New Mexico began in 1861 with the Co... read more
In Boyle Heights, gateway to East Los Angeles, sits the 1889 landmark "Hotel Mariachi," where musicians have lived and gathered on the adjacent plaza for more than half a century. This book is a photographic and ethnographic study of the mariachis, Mariachi Pl... read more
In the very last year of the seventeenth century a ten-year-old boy in the city of Lucerne, Switzerland, announced to his parents that he wanted to become a Jesuit missionary and save souls in faraway lands. Philipp Segesser got his wish when he was sent to no... read more
This unique reference work describes over 350 wildflowers and flowering shrubs that grow in New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo, Jemez, Sandia, and Manzano Mountains, as well as neighboring ranges, including the Manzanita, San Pedro, Ortiz, and other lower-elevation... read more
Molas, the distinctive blouses made and worn by Kuna women in Panama, are collected by thousands of enthusiasts as well as by anthropological museums all over the world. They are recognized everywhere as an identifier of the Kuna people and also of Panama. Thi... read more
A new collection by one of our foremost masters of free verse as well as formal poetry. The moody poems in Madame X, the author’s tenth collection, find their subjects in the byways of the past two centuries. Henry James visits his birthplace, the most beautif... read more
Revealing the Southwest as home to some of the most entertaining writers in twenty-first century fiction, this collection features a wonderfully diverse array of authors, including Alberto Álvaro Ríos, Ron Carlson, José Skinner, Tacey M. Atsitty, and Kirstin V... read more
Your mom is one of the most important people in your life—here’s your chance to tell her. What I Love About You, Mom provides a personal and heartfelt way to tell your mother just how much you appreciate all she has done for you. With writing prompts, checklis... read more
This book of stories and recipes introduces two eccentric families that would never have eaten together, let alone exchanged recipes, but for the improbable marriage of the author's parents: a nuevomexicano from Taos and a painter who came from Texas to New Me... read more
A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem, and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser At eighteen, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director... read more
Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human RightsThis new edition of an immensely influential book gives voice to Mexic Amerindian women silenced for hundreds of years by the dual censorship of being... read more
"A perfect read as a financial primer. Weston's solid and occasionally humorous writing shines through . . . [and] takes this book from being yet another personal finance book to being an enjoyable read I would recommend."—The Simple DollarMillions of us skate... read more
For readers of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, The Barefoot Running Book lends practical advice on the minimalist running phenomenonDitch those cushiony running shoes—they’re holding you back and hurting your feet!You’ve heard about barefoot running and ... read more
A former word pun champion's funny, erudite, and provocative exploration of puns, the people who make them, and this derided wordplay's remarkable impact on history. The pun is commonly dismissed as the lowest form of wit, and punsters are often unpopular for ... read more
"A fascinating literary and historical document, the most insightful look at the Beat Generation." —Dan Wakefield, author of New York in the Fifties and Going All the WayFirst published in 1978, Jack's Book gives us an intimate look into the life and times of ... read more
Famous radio private eye Guy Noir leaps from A Prairie Home Companion to the pageOn the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef who... read more
Following the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the early 1500s, Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian friars fanned out across the central and southern areas of the country, founding hundreds of mission churches and monasteries to evangelize the Native populatio... read more
With her characteristic music and precision, Dubrow delves unflinchingly into a mother's story of trauma and captivity. The poet proves that truth telling and vision can give meaning to the gravest situations, allowing women to create a future on their own terms.
Equal under the Sky is the first historical study of Georgia O'Keeffe's complex involvement with, and influence on, US feminism from the 1910s to the 1970s. Utilizing understudied sources such as fan letters, archives of women's organizations, transcripts of w... read more
Winner of the 2016 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library AssociationWinner of the 2016 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Arts BookGold Winner of the 2016 PubWest Book Design Award for Adult Trade Book, IllustratedKnown as a painter's painter, I... read more
From aardvark to zenzizenzizenzic, Word Drops collects a thousand obscure words and language facts in one fascinating chain of word associations. Did you know, for example, that scandal derives from the Latin for "stumbling block" and originally described a tr... read more
In this book Kyong Hwa Lee combines the art of origami and the science of flight to create unique paper airplane designs for aviation enthusiasts of all ages. Featuring thirty-two designs, Amazing Paper Airplanes showcases models resembling real-world aircraft... read more
Unleash positive thinking and productive imagination and flip negative thoughts and behaviors into a lifetime of improve every aspect of your life…each morning, each day at a time.Bad habits. Bad feelings. Bad mornings that turn into regrettable days.Banish th... read more
Designed to help birders and banders identify, age, and sex all seventeen species of hummingbirds found in North America, this is the only identification guide devoted entirely to hummingbirds that includes up-close, easy-to-use illustrations. It also provides... read more
This debut collection explores the vestiges of war and the effects those can have on a family. Carlson excavates the personal experience of violence and abuse that follows a traumatized soldier home and also reveals veins of redemption.
New from celebrated poet and performer Anne Waldman - an edgy, visionary collection that meditates on gender, existence, passion and activismMythopoetics, shape shifting, quantum entanglement, Anthropocene blues, litany and chance operation play inside the fie... read more
A powerful, timely, dazzling collection of sonnets from one of America's most acclaimed poets, Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award winning author of Lighthead"The right poetry collection for right now." - The Los Angeles Times"Sonnets that reckon with Dona... read more
Digital literacy advocate Diana Graber demystifies the complicated digital landscape facing today’s kids and provides answers for parents and teachers eager to show them how to use technology as an empowering force in their lives and in their role as future le... read more
A Good Woman

Danielle Steel

From the glittering ballrooms of Manhattan to the fires of World War I, Danielle Steel takes us on an unforgettable journey in her new novel—a spellbinding tale of war, loss, history, and one woman’s unbreakable spirit....Nineteen-year-old Annabelle Worthingto... read more
With her gift for “surprising emotional honesty…[and] an impressive ability to get inside the heads of [her characters],”* Tess Stimson grips readers with this internationally bestselling novel of six lovers, two marriages, one affair—and what happens when a l... read more
"A unique, significant contribution to our maturing studies of the Clovis era."--Gary Haynes, author of The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis EraThe Paleoindian Clovis culture is known for distinctive stone and bone tools often associated with mamm... read more
This book provides a long-needed overview of the Chicana and Chicano movement's social history as it grew, flourished, and then slowly fragmented. The authors examine the movement's origins in the 1960s and 1970s, showing how it evolved from a variety of organ... read more

Professionals similar to Catherine

Get a range of offers by requesting quotes from multiple professionals.

John Alves

John A.

I’m an experienced graphic designer specializing in book covers. I design for high visual impact.

New York, NY, USA

100% reply rate

View profile
Patrick Atkins

Patrick A.

A freelance Illustrator/Graphic Designer with over 8 years of experience creating book covers, album sleeves and artworks for exhibition.

Bristol, UK

100% reply rate

View profile
Cathy Morrison

Cathy M.

Award winning illustrator passionate about nature, science and the environment. I create picture books that encourage life long readers.

Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

100% reply rate

View profile