Molly Leach (born October 4, 1960) is an American graphic designer known for her work in children's books including The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! .
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Molly Leach began her career in 1982 as a designer at Sport magazine and later designed special issues and annuals for magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Business Week .
Leach's career designing picture book covers began when she was recruited by Lane Smith, illustrator of the 1989 picture book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! , to design the book's cover. She worked with Smith to design covers for the 1991 books The Big Pets and Glasses Who Needs 'Em? before her well-known cover of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales was published in 1992.
Other notable covers by Leach have been featured in new editions of Roald Dahl books; Jack Gantos's Joey Pigza books; the Dr. Seuss treasury Your Favorite Seuss: A Baker's Dozen by the One and Only Dr. Seuss; and the 50th anniversary edition of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (2012). [1]
Leach's unconventional style involves zany elements such as upside down text and bold headline fonts, and has influenced children's book design. The Stinky Cheese Man in particular has been specifically credited with moving children's design into a new era. [2] Leach "opened the door in a lot of ways" claimed the book designer Isabel Warren-Lynch, who wrote, "When we saw The Stinky Cheese Man, designers said, 'This is what we want to do, too!'" [2]
In a 1998 essay, Jon Scieszka praised Leach for going beyond the typical role of a designer: "When she’s done, the design tells as much of the story as the text and illustrations do." [3] "People leafing through The Stinky Cheese Man would see that something different was going on — and realize that a good part of that 'something' was Molly's design", Scieszka wrote. Smith echoed this sentiment: "Jon and I both appreciate goofy, second-grade humor. If it were up to us, we would use all comic-book type or hand lettered type made of twigs. Molly, with her background in magazine design is different. She'll take what we do — and make it classy." [4]
"She thought that unusually big, dramatic type best communicated the fun of stories in which things continually went haywire" wrote children's literature scholar Leonard S. Marcus in the 2001 book Side by Side. "And she wanted each page to feel as if it were ready to burst at the margins." [5]
Steven Heller and Steven Guarnaccia state in Designing for Children (1994, Watson-Guptill), "while Smith's drawings are artfully primitive... it is the book design by Molly Leach that is the BRUTest of all... the type varies in weight, size and leading, but there are other witty tricks: for instance, where there isn't enough text to fill a page it is repeated, and when the character Chicken Licken is introduced the type, not the sky, falls on her head."
Leach is married to Lane Smith, a children's book author and illustrator with whom she frequently collaborates. Previously, the couple lived in New York City for 30 years, and in 2023, it was reported that they had moved to a remote, wooded part of Connecticut. [6] Leach and Smith have a dog and a cat. They often hike in the mornings.