Leslie Harrington – Designer

I grew up in the Midwest and am a graduate from The Columbus College of Art and Design. I left Ohio for an adventure out west and started my career in Seattle that had a fledgling video game and high tech industry. At Starwave, Paul Allen’s website and internet based company, I worked on Castle Infinity. Castle Infinity was the first fully released MMOG (Massively MultiPlayer Online Game) designed for children. I was a character designer and background artist. Later, I worked at Humongous Entertainment which was best known for developing multiple edutainment franchises. Best known are, Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam and Spy Fox, combined, they’ve sold over 15 million copies and earned more than 400 awards of excellence. After the dot com bust, I began my freelance career working primary in children’s educational illustration for such well known publishers as MITR Learning, Oxford University Press, Pearson/ Scott Foresman, Houghton-Mifflin, It Is Written, Inc., Abingdon Press, Inc., MPS North America, McGraw Hill, Element, LLC, Cengage Learning, Scholastic, Wizards of the Coast, National Geographic, and Regnery Publishing. I’m in my 14th year of creating Highlights Magazine's Goofus and Gallant. It is a sincere honor to be a part of their historic 72 years in print.

Although my work leans towards education-I do have a less bookish side! I love developing new characters and drawing animals. I find inspiration in my collection of Little Golden Books with their fun colors, textures and graphic design. I work best from an art brief listing needs and wants. If it’s a larger project like a picture book, I will read the manuscript and make scribbly thumbnails and confer with the author on their vision. Sketches are done and if tweaks are requested I am happy to make adjustments to one more round of sketches. I’d expect that a picture book would take 4 months or more. Book covers approximately a month and spot illustrations vary depending on the number needed and the amount of detail in each.