Annie Dills

You may have heard of ships. You may have also heard of the sea and the night. But did you realize there’s nothing more beautiful than a ship and its lights on the sea at night? I teamed up with Dave Eggers to capture the shimmering reflections of the ship lights in the water at night time. The book includes metallic gold and silver Pantones and a fold out poster cover.

Writer and Art Director: Dave Eggers

Illustrator: Annie Dills

Designer: Sunra Thompson

Client: McSweeney’s Publishing

Typeface: Miller by the Font Bureau and Baskerville by John Baskerville

Unnecessarily Beautiful is a 280 page book of photographs, product shots and writing from 826 Valencia and the worldwide movement of youth writing centers it’s inspired. It is both a celebration of the spaces as well as an advice manual for aspiring centers to build their own youth writing centers.

Client: McSweeney’s Publishing

Designers: Annie Dills and Sunra Thompson

Art Director: Dave Eggers

Typeface: Clarendon by Robert Besley and Garamond by Claude Garamond

A mockup cover for a novel about a taxi driver working and living in Alaska.

This is mockup cover for a novel about a meteorologist who can control the weather with her mind.

Client: Red Hen Press

Art Director: Hannah Moye

Typeface: Futura by Paul Renner

Scissors Paper Stone is a coming of age story that spans two decades of love, loss, and the complexity of female friendships. I was asked to incorporate the lead character’s home town of Marin, CA, and a symbol representing the lesbian community.

Client: Quill Books

Art Direction: Tobi Harper

Typeface: Saveur Sans by Andrew Footit

This collection of poems and prose is the final book in a trilogy about an omnipresent snake god.

Client: Red Hen Press

Art Director: Hannah Moye

Typeface: Garamond by Claude Garamond

Bone Willows is a collection of poetry about the Alaskan wilderness.

Client: Boreal Books

Art Director: Alisa Trager

Typeface: Hand drawn

An anthology of grade school student poetry.

Client: Red Hen Press

Art Director: Taline Rumaya

Typeface: Roboto Slab by Christian Robertson and Minion Pro by Robert Slimbach

This is a collection of short stories about astronauts, zombies, pirates, and an astronomer haunted by the ghost of a gigantic moose.

Client: Red Hen Press

Art Director: Alisa Trager

Typeface: Hand drawn

Self-ish is a memoir about gender transition and finding oneself. Although we ended up going with a portrait for the cover, it was definitely a favorite.

Client: Red Hen Press

Art Director: Hannah Moye

Typeface: Wild Irish Rose by Simon Stratford

The Perpetual Motion Machine is a memoir about the struggle of loving someone with mental illness. The author and I tried several different photographic comps but an illustrated cover seemed to best fit the personal nature of the book. 

Client: Red Hen Press

Art Direction: Hannah Moye

Typeface: Hand drawn

Inspired by the Laurel Canyon music scene of the late 1960’s, this mock concert poster pays homage to the wild parties at Mamma Cass’ house. I was interested in creating a modern take on the Fillmore’s psychedelic concert posters that were designed to ward off “squares” by camouflaging crucial information. The concert’s time, date, and location are hidden within the details of the house.

Client: Class Project 

Professor: Scot Moss

Typeface: Hand drawn