Priya Anand — illustrator
open · editorial commissions · Q3 2026 · 2 book covers under contract

Priya Anand — illustrator, editorial, books & identity.

I make pictures that hold up at small sizes and don't argue with the words around them. Working since 2017 for magazines, novelists, and a few coffee bags I'm fond of.

9 yr
illustrating professionally
62
editorial commissions
7
book covers shipped
Newsreader · ink · risograph
tools, mostly
§ Clients & publishers · 2020–2026
The Believer The Atlantic Henry Holt Tide Coffee Linear McSweeney's Knopf Brightwave Books The New Yorker Harper's The Believer The Atlantic Henry Holt Tide Coffee Linear McSweeney's Knopf Brightwave Books The New Yorker Harper's

Selected pictures

Six pieces from the last two years. The rest is in a flat file in my apartment.

Interviews & press

Six features. I'm not very chatty; these are most of them.

  1. 2026·01
    "A picture is a sentence I can't quite write" — interview, AIGA Eye on Design
    On covers, the line, and how editors talk you out of your best idea — long-form interview with Aarti Iyer.
  2. 2025·11
    It's Nice That · "Five years of small pictures"
    A long retrospective with 41 pieces and an essay by James Greig.
  3. 2025·06
    The Believer · contributor Q&A · Issue 138
    Short Q&A pegged to the spring cover and three sketches that didn't make the page.
  4. 2024·10
    Print Magazine · 50 illustrators under 35
    Group feature; my entry is two paragraphs about microscopes and editors.
  5. 2024·03
    Hover States podcast · ep. 88
    A conversation about teaching yourself to draw after age 24, and what it costs.
  6. 2022·07
    Brightwave Review · "How the picture got made"
    A process feature on the Tide Coffee identity — six rejected sketches with my own annotations.

About

I was a biology major in college and learned to draw because my professors made us draw what we saw under microscopes. I still mostly draw what I see — but the things I see now are usually metaphors people pay me to make visible.

I work in gouache, ink, and a little bit of digital at the end. I read the manuscript before I take a book cover; I read the essay twice before I take an editorial. If the writing doesn't ask for a picture, I tell the editor.

I keep a small studio at the back of an old print shop in Greenpoint with two riso machines, two cats, and a Japanese woodblock press I am still learning. Most evenings I am there until I am hungry.

§ Places I've worked
  • 2020 — NowIndependent · Greenpoint studioEditorial & books
  • 2018 — 2020Pentagram (associate)Editorial team
  • 2016 — 2018HyperaktJunior designer
  • 2012 — 2016Wesleyan · BA Biologyhonors thesis
§ Things I make outside work
  • — Riso-printed holiday cards, twice a year
  • — A zine called Pinprick · 4 issues
  • — Sourdough on Sundays
  • — A bad sketchbook I share with nobody
§ Now
dated · 2026.04.18 · Greenpoint

Open for editorial commissions starting Q3 2026. Two book covers under contract through 2027 — both novels, one nonfiction. Reading is mostly Toni Morrison this season; I keep underlining the verbs.

last sketch · this morning
§ Contact — preferred
hello@priyaanand.studio

For commissions, please include the publication or imprint, the manuscript or brief, your deadline, and a budget range. I'm slow to email but quick once we're working — I usually reply within 3 days.

Instagram · @priya.draws Are.na · /priya-anand Newsletter · monthly Representation · Sterling Lord Literistic