Karolin Schnoor for Chronicle Books: Illustrations for Every Woman

Karolin Schnoor’s feminine, female-driven style was the perfect fit for Chronicle’s book of poems, “There Are Girls Like Lions,” created for mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, partners, and friends everywhere. With beautiful full-bleed illustrations and gold accents throughout, the anthology is a celebration of tactile print work as much as it is of the experience of being a woman. “A lot of my work features women, and I am also very captivated by fairy tales and narrative,” explained Karolin. “It was so lovely being able to just go with my instincts and have an art director trust what I was doing.” Indeed, Karolin enjoyed plenty of creative freedom as she worked with design director Jennifer Tolo Pierce to set a rhythm for her illustrations among the book’s 30 poems, alternating simpler graphic drawings with more detailed ones and smaller artworks with two-page spreads. Karolin called the project a “dream job,” only challenged at first by her readers’ imaginative power. “In some ways illustrating poetry is very daunting because you don’t want to take away from what someone else might imagine. But some of the pieces just leapt out and seemed to want to be illustrated, so the whole process was wonderfully organic and smooth,” she said. No surprise—we can see the effortlessness on every page. Purchase your copy here