Publishing Profiles: Meet Edwin Vazquez, Senior Designer, RHPG
Meet Edwin Vazquez, Senior Designer, RHPG!
For Edwin Vazquez, Senior Designer at Random House Publishing Group, the design process begins long before he opens his laptop. It starts in the stacks of books he uses for research at his local library, a texture spotted on the sidewalk during his commute to the office, or even time spent with his daughter cutting out custom stencils.
Curiosity is at the heart of Edwin’s deeply thoughtful approach to his work. Over nearly 10 years at PRH, he has brought that perspective to an impressive range of books and worlds, including the Lore Olympus and DC Comics novel series, Marvel’s What If.. novels, and Han Kang’s WE DO NOT PART. Most recently, he worked closely with artist Devon Rodriguez on WORK IN PROGRESS (One World; on-sale 9/29/26), a collaboration Edwin describes as a “crowning achievement” that helped reenergize his own creative process. A behind-the-scenes video about this project can be found on the author’s Instagram page.
Edwin sat down with us to share his path to book design, the research behind his creative process, and the importance of understanding the communities represented by a project.
Q: How long have you been at Penguin Random House?
This November, I’ll have been at Penguin Random House for 10 years. I remember when I first started, the recruiter told me that time would fly by. And it really flew by, especially with getting married during that time, having two kids, and going through the pandemic.
Q: What initially led you to this role?
Edwin creates handmade books to help bring additional insight into the creation process. Pictured is a mini book he created for his second daughter.
Instead of being led, it almost felt like slipping, falling, and tumbling into book design. For me, books have always been in my DNA. Even as a child, I would mock up comic books. I would create little booklets, and I always had this interest in the anatomy of a book. However, I wasn’t aware of it as a career option. I hadn’t even thought about how someone actually put these things together—that someone was thinking about the fonts, the images, and making a package out of it.
At the start of my career, that interest led me more toward comic books because I understood there was an illustrator and a writer attached to them, but I didn’t know as much about a team producing literary books. On the road toward book publishing, I did some freelance work for Titmouse animation studios, BONGO comics, WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED, and was a tattoo artist for a short while in Greenwich Village, NYC. It was during that time when I was doing indie comic book compilations, that some artists needed someone who knew InDesign to produce self-published comic books. I didn’t know InDesign, but I said yes. I was like, “I’ll figure it out.” And with that kind of mindset, that’s kind of how I got here.
Q: What does a typical day in your role look like?
Edwin’s WE DO NOT PART book design, featuring white acrylic type on the spine for a matte/snow-inspired effect.
I look through a lot of manuscripts, and I research a lot. There’s this blend where work isn’t work, and it’s just kind of a state of being. I’m always looking at—and I always have been looking at—design and the history behind music, movies, or art. There’s a certain beat that flows through these pieces that’s inspired by the spirit of the title. 80% of my design process is research.
For example, when I was working on Han Kang’s WE DO NOT PART, I was excited to work on it because of its Korean representation. I live in a multicultural Hispanic and Korean household and lived in South Korea for a short-while. However, I also knew the common pitfalls of stereotyping in design. So, I aimed to find something unique and set apart from the usual Western depictions you might see by combining my family life with research at my local library.
Q: So, what does it look like once you get through the research part and start the design process?
Working from home, there’s a lot of responsibility, but also a lot of distractions with personal calls, deliveries, and emails. I tend to wake up very early in the morning to give myself a three-hour block when everything is quiet before the day begins.
It’s vital for me as a designer to have moments of directed isolation where I can explore and experiment with the high energy that’s needed for the creative process. Creativity is a 24-hour window of opportunity that doesn’t always follow a typical 9–5 workday window.
Q: When you’re in the execution part of the design process, what does that typically look like for you? Are you physically drawing things out or primarily using digital software?
Behind the scenes of a layout design for THE HOUR STRIKES. Edwin scribbles and writes notes in the process of creating a design.
For me, it’s a combination. I tend to have a sketchbook and either write words, scribble, or make blocks on a page. And I explore to find textures wherever possible. Even this morning while I was coming to the office, some splatted paint on the ground caught my eye, and I took a photograph. That’s something so unique and can never be exactly replicated.
Even if a design program has a million options, I have infinite options to pull inspiration from in reality. Just the other day, my daughter and I cut out a bunch of Bat-Signals for NO MAN’S LAND and spray-painted with them. The stencils did not work out for use, but I knew something needed to be included in the layouts from that experience.
Typically, I gather my sketches and think through the feelings and tone for a particular project. Once I build out the literary aspect of it in InDesign, even the fonts and spacing themselves have a character that can depict the mood of the project. To me, certain fonts have a feel that can help bring the reader into the sort of world that the author wants to bring them into.
When I’m in the office, I’m constantly printing the pages and not just viewing them as a PDF on the computer screen. That’s a benefit of being in the office: using high-quality printers and getting to that delicate sense of making sure a text setting is just right. A former illustration mentor, Carl Titolo, passed on his knowledge to consider how every aspect of an illustration should be valued, from the main subject to the farthest edge of the illustration canvas. I carry this outlook to bookmaking where the title-page, layout text, and case dressing is just as important as the leading, margins, and practicality.
That’s how I got this job. I was one of four applicants, but I was the only one who brought an actual book to my interview.
Q: What teams do you typically work with in your role?
From l to r: Edwin Vazquez, Elizabeth Mendez Berry, and Devon Rodriguez behind-the-scenes at the WORK IN PROGRESS video.
It depends on the book. I’m always in a constant state of referring to and utilizing my supervisors’ eyes to give me another perspective. Sometimes I’m so close to a design that I may not see an error that may influence the bigger picture. For licensed titles, I tend to work closely with their editorial teams, where we can throw ideas back and forth and work through how to elevate the book through customization.
From time to time, I speak directly with an author. My best experience with an author was with Devon Rodriguez. He’s very inspirational with the energy he brought into the WORK IN PROGRESS project–it woke up a creative reconnect within me. Since he’s a New York artist residing locally, he was very willing to meet in-person to review layouts and bookcase cover swatches. He and his editor Elizabeth Mendez Berry were always welcoming during our discussions. I felt I could see a lot of myself in him when I was younger, especially his creative energy.
After doing something for 10 years, you have a tendency to get into this kind of mechanical, process-oriented, and complacent mindset. Working on WORK IN PROGRESS, I had just gotten back from parental leave after having my second daughter, and the project stirred things up for me back to a passionate design mindset.
Q: Can you share more about your experience working with Devon Rodriquez?
Edwin found a street advertisement for WORK IN PROGRESS while walking with his daughter.
It was about an eight-month process of going back and forth and collaborating. Now, the book is essentially finished, and Devon is busy promoting the book. This particular project is a crowning achievement for me. It’s very personal and inspiring, and it has this energy that’s hard to replicate.
When you see Devon on his channels, that’s a very real and authentic portrayal of himself. He’s very interested in finding out the process of things. What I heard a lot from him was, “What do you think, and what do you recommend?” It’s his book, so I’m always completely blown away when I hear that from an author. I remember only one other time hearing something similar when I worked with Rachel Smythe. When I met with her while developing Lore Olympus, she said, “Do whatever you want.”
When we did that video together, Devon gave a suggestion to “be natural”. And when the videographer said, “Action,” that whole video was done in one take. Devon creates a very comfortable environment and is just easy to be around.
Q: How do you feel your role contributes to Penguin Random House’s mission to ignite a universal passion for reading by creating books for everyone?
Marvel Book Design. Edwin aims to keep consistency in the Marvel logo, What If… logo, glyphs (seen in books 2,3,4, but missing from 1 and 5 intentionally) and baselines of the Random House Worlds Logo.
Being a designer and creating books requires sensitivity. You have to be hyper-aware of your audience and different cultures. There may be this feeling that you have to be of a certain identity to represent a title, but I find that as long as you respect the project and use your time to research, understand, and develop it, not only are you representing the project in a meaningful way, but you’re learning differing perspectives on your own. I remember learning the common six principles of design at the School of Visual Arts and thinking a seventh would be incorporating culture.
Also, you need to be able to step away from generic ideas and thoughts, and fully customize something. I recently saw a title I was very interested in reading. My first impression of the packaging was that it was phenomenal. The jacket, side printing, titlepage, and layout worked really well. But something started creeping into my mind. I couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but eventually I realized that the stock image used for the title page and chapter headers was also used on my wife’s phone case. And when I looked away, the same image was seen on my window curtains. Stock images can bring a special look to a project, but if those images are used without customizing, it can destroy the novelty of the project.
And a note from my former mentor, Virginia Norey, “If you notice something, then others will, too.” If you take the time to really represent the voice that the book is trying to evoke, you can create books that draw people in. You can still have a presence by being quiet.
Q: Since we work in publishing, I have to ask. What are you currently reading?
I’m also reading AIMLESS GENERATION by Hamilton West Jr, which talks about digital vices and addictions.
And Han Kang’s WE DO NOT PART. I usually read projects I worked on in manuscript form, but I don’t typically read the designed books. This is a title I’m reading fully-developed for the first time.
I was reluctant to read Devon Rodriguez’s WORK IN PROGRESS as a manuscript because there are so many illustrations that give it its life. That’s also something I would reread to get the full reader experience.
Learn more about Edwin’s project with Devon Rodriguez below!
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