Members Only Speed Round Portfolio Pitch Mixer
January 9, 2025 @ 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
The Society of Illustrators is proud to present the return of our… Speed Round Portfolio Pitch Mixer!
An event, free and exclusive to our Illustrators – S Members, (early career illustrators, 36 years or younger), will function similarly to that of a “speed dating” event.
This mixer will focus primarily on Children’s Book Illustration-focused works and career paths.
We will have 8 professional Children’s Book Focused Artists & Art Directors in total, each seated at their own table, and we welcome 16 of our members who have signed up for the event. Each artist will come in and give their 5 minute pitch, showcasing their recent work and ambitions for their future in their career. Once the five minutes is up with their first review, they move to the next.
The event will take place within our third floor Garden Gallery where there will be 80 minutes of this repeated “speed dating” review/pitch process, and then 30 minutes of mingling. Cash bar provided.
We hope this event will inspire and provide guidance to young upcoming illustrators breaking out into the field, and will hopefully make an impact and guide them to their goals and aspirations!
We encourage artists to bring business cards, mailers (5×9 print card), zines or other physical networking materials.
Please note this is meant to be structured like speed dating rounds & elevator pitches, bringing an entire portfolio of work will not be necessary.
MEET OUR SPECIAL GUESTS!
Mina Chung — Mina is a Queens born and bred designer and crafter, and like a true New Yorker, complains about the weather four seasons long. She is an SVA grad and got her start designing children’s books at Sterling Publishing and spent over a decade developing her craft and love for picture books at Dial Books/Penguin Random House. A small number of highlights from her time at Dial Books include The Little Senses series; the simultaneous bilingual pub, Coqui in the City/De aquí come el coqui; Sibert Honor Award winner, Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom, the coming-of-age graphic novel, Huda F Are You, and Yes We Will: Asian Americans Who Shaped This Country.
Mina joined the stellar team at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group in 2021 as the Associate Art Director, working on Picture Books for Feiwel & Friends, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, and Roaring Brook Press. In her time at MCPG, she had the privilege of collaborating with so many talented artists and designing and art directing recent titles such as, What Can a Mess Make, Bye Land Bye Sea, May You Love and Be Loved, Mole Is Not Alone, and the simultaneous bilingual pub, Until Someone Listens/Hasta que alguien me escuche.
Image Credit: Heami Lee
Julie Benbassat — An award winning illustrator and painter based in Philadelphia. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019, she has gone on to amass a range of clients in editorial, publishing, games, and animation. Her work delights in the eccentricities and wonders of the natural world, indulges in the fantastical, mixes narrative and portraiture, and highlights the bridge between the cute and the horrific.
Image Credit: Julie Benbassat
Brian Floca — The author and illustrator of Keeping the City Going; Locomotive, winner of the 2014 Caldecott Medal; Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11; Lightship; The Racecar Alphabet, and other acclaimed picture books. He has illustrated Avi’s Poppy Stories series; Laura Amy Schlitz’s Princess Cora and the Crocodile; Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan’s Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring; and, most recently, With Dad, by Richard Jackson. In addition to the Caldecott Medal, Brian’s books have received four Robert F. Sibert Honor awards for distinguished informational books, a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators, and have been selected three times for the annual New York Times Best Illustrated Books list. Brian was born and raised in Temple, Texas, and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Image Credit: Brian Floca
Kate Renner — Kate is an Art Director at Penguin Young Readers. She has art directed picture books and graphic novels with a wide variety of illustrators including Frank Morrison, Divya Srinivasan, Sydney Smith, Lenny Wen, Michael Rex, Juana Martinez-Neal, Jaime Kim, David Shannon, Molly Idle, and Charles Santoso. Kate graduated with a BFA in graphic design from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Image Credit: Kate Renner
Clare Pernice — A children’s book writer and illustrator born and raised in England where she received her BA from London’s Central Saint Martin’s School of Art. She has since designed and produced art in Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Charleston and New York City.
Her illustration and design work include children’s clothing, toys, murals, and hand typography for which she earned an Addy Award. She also created costumes for both stage and film, Cyrano de Bergerac garnering an Academy Award for Best Costume. Clients include Hachette Premiere, Sanrio, Disney and Paramount.
Clare is the Children’s Programs Creative Consultant and Saturday Stories Presenter at The Society of Illustrator’s Museum of Illustration, Manhattan. She teaches Creating Characters and Stories workshops for the Society of Illustrators and The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston.
Her first book that she authored and illustrated is Circus Girl (Simply Read Books). Soon to be released is her new book, The Real Mother Goose followed by Adventure Boy.
Image Credit: Clare Pernice
Nicole de las Heras — Nicole is the Executive Art Director for Trade Picture Books and Preschool at Random House Children’s Books where she oversees the design teams for the imprints that create picture books and board books. These teams have contributed to multiple award-winning, bestselling, and high-profile titles. An accomplished art director and book designer herself, having worked on New York Times best-selling, award-winning, and high-profile picture books, she loves pairing the right artist with the right manuscript and collaborating with each artist and editor to bring books to life. Nicole has also worked on books that have been juried into the Society of Illustrators Original Art Show and recognized at the New York Book Show. She has attended SCBWI conferences as faculty where she’s spoken on picture book illustration-related topics and provided portfolio critiques, and she has been invited as guest lecturer to the Hollins University Summer MFA program.
Nicole is privileged to have worked on a vast array of books, including The Wonderful Things You Will Be by Emily Winfield Martin; Coretta Scott King Illustrator Book winner Standing in the Need of Prayer, written by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Frank Morrison, Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Honor book Emile and the Field, written by Kevin Young and illustrated by Chioma Ebinama; New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award winner As Edward Imagined by Matthew Burgess and illustrated by Marc Majewski… and many more!
Image Credit: Nicole de las Heras
Jessie Hartland — A New York City based artist, writer, and illustrator of books for children. She has painted murals at a Japanese amusement park, designed Christmas windows for Bloomingdale’s, and put her mark on ceramics, watches, and all sorts of other things. She has done drawings for many magazines and newspapers such as The New York Times, Travel and Leisure Family, Martha Stewart Kids and Bon Appetit.
Jessie Hartland has over twenty books to her name. She has
written about oodles of disparate subjects: truffle hounds,
tardigrades, meteorites, a sphinx, working the night shift, Julia Child and Steve Jobs.
Her paintings have been exhibited in Venice, Tokyo, Long Island and New York City.
Image Credit: Jessie Hartland
Jennifer Browne — Jennifer has worked as an art director both in the UK and the US. She is currently Creative Director of Neal Porter Books at Holiday House. She and Neal have worked together for the last 30 years.
Image Credit: Jennifer Browne