The last question touches on a bit of early O'Reilly history. She encountered a pair of slender lorises and had an epiphany. She scanned several animals from the archive and placed them on mock-up covers, which she then presented to everyone at O'Reilly. O'Reilly had ten or so employees at the time, and everyone thought the animals were awful. Edie had to talk Tim O'Reilly into following her instincts.
Customers wound up loving the covers, and a brand was born.
Read Edie Freedman's account of how the animals ended up on O'Reilly books. Things have changed a lot at O'Reilly since those first archive images were scanned. An increasing number of the animal images are now drawn by hand. One of the artists behind our animals One of our prolific artists is Lorrie LeJeune. Officially, Lorrie is an editor in the O'Reilly Cambridge, Massachusetts, office, but she's also a freelance artist on the side.