Stericker launches new creative agency Studio 7:15

Former Orion creative director Lucie Stericker, the designer of the Queenie cover, has launched her own creative agency Studio 7:15 after leaving the publisher after 23 years.

As well as the more traditional creative direction and design expertise, the agency will offer a unique publishing service - bringing together specialist teams of writers, recipe developers, researchers, designers, photographers and stylists to "provide a one-stop shop for creating integrated colour books". It will focus on illustrated books, with the expectation of six cookery or lifestyle books a year and Stericher will also continue to work with Orion on various projects.

She said: “It is really exciting to be out on my own and working across the industry. With my contacts book being second-to-none, it seemed a no-brainer to create a more team-based approach to my new venture."

Stericker has more than 30 years' experience in the publishing and the design industries and is an expert on integrated publishing as well as cover design. She left Orion last month and previously worked at HarperCollins and across children's books. She recently created the cover for the British Book Awards Book of the Year-winning Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, detailing for The Bookseller last year how she developed the "bright and off-kilter" multi-Pantone editions. She has also worked on various successful brands for Orion such as The Hairy Bikers, the Glastonbury Festival, Michel Roux and Lorna Cooper’s Feed Your Family for £20 a Week.

Stericker believes the pandemic has allowed for more innovative working patterns so there is no need currently to be based in a city. “We’re working from home [Lewes, Sussex] at the moment but working life has changed so dramatically and I’m not sure we’d come back to London or not,” she told The Bookseller. “Obviously for a lot of colour-illustrated books it involves shooting, being on-set with clients, so all that flexibility is really exciting. Working life has opened up so much and we can work with designers all over the world, which we intend to.”

She revealed the inspiration behind the new agency’s name is that “7:15 is just a brilliant time of day and night and it’s the time I used to get the train to London”.

While spearheading the agency, she plans to work with an increasing pool of other creatives. “I also have photographers and writers who’ve said they want to join forces, people who can put the whole book together. I will manage it but it’s so exciting to be a design agency and be part of a team.”

For more information visit studio715.co.uk.