Location: Brooklyn, NY
Website: Julia Rothman
Blog: Book By Its Cover

Julia Rothman is a prolific illustrator and pattern designer with a list of clients you’ve probably heard of. Places like the New York Times, Urban Outfitters, Details Magazine, and Chronicle Books. And along with her partners at the design firm Also, Julia helped build the entire website for Cartoon Brew, from logo to blog to an online store for vintage animation, and they revamped the popular schmancy-looking-stuff blog Design*Sponge. Julia also recently participated in Design by the Book, a project with the New York Public Library and Design*Sponge to make works based on books from the library’s archives, which resulted in the fabric used on these great pillows.

I first became familiar with Julia through her fantastic blog, Book by its Cover, where she highlights books she’s discovered and collected. After watching the videos from the Design by the Book project, I sought out this great tutorial on creating your own pattern repeats by hand, which I have used for my own purposes as well as for lessons in the classes I teach. Now that I recognize her style, I see her work on everything from housewares to websites to wallpaper (and I don’t mean computer desktops – I mean the wall of your house!) It’s a special honor for me to have Julia in this set because it was her pattern tutorial that gave me the idea for this theme in the first place!