Smeagull the Seagull, A True Story, is Illustrator, Valerie Pettis’s entre into the world children’s book illustration (in a special partnership with author, Mark Seth Lender).

Trained as a graphic designer, Valerie Pettis has spent her career developing communications strategies for leading corporations and non-profit organizations. She is best known for her work with human rights issues, notably, The United Nations International Woman Year Symbol, now in its’ fifth decade of use worldwide. She has developed visual communications for international corporations including Citibank, DeBeers, JP Morgan Chase and Revlon, and many humanitarian organizations, notable UNICEF and The United Nations. She has taught and lectured at many institutions including Parsons School of Design, Fashion Institute of Technology, Cooper Union, University of the Arts and Yale School of Art.

Valerie Pettis has been the subject of major articles in Time Magazine, The New York Times, Print, Graphis, Progressive Architecture, etc. She has been featured in many books about graphic design. Her human rights posters for Posters for Tomorrow’s design competitions are part of permanent collections in the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

Valerie’s work is currently exhibited at Spectrum Gallery, Centerbrook, Connecticut.