Robin Black-Blackbird Creative

For 20+ years Robin of Blackbird Creative has been working for publishers such as Thomas Nelson, Zondervan, Waterbrook/Multnomah, Guideposts, Rodale, and Deep River Books. Specializing in book design and typesetting, she has worked on a large variety of books from simple nonfiction to visually stimulating full-color gift books.

Kirk DouPonce-DogEared Design

Over the past fifteen years, Kirk DouPonce of DogEared Design has created thousands of book covers. Some of the authors he's designed covers for include Coach Bill McCartney, Max Lucado, John Piper, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and James Dobson. Kirk has won numerous awards and has had his work featured in the Fresh section of Communication Arts Magazine

Joe Bailen-Contajus Designs

Joe Bailen, founder of Contajus Designs, has been doing creative design work for over seventeen years. His customer base has been built on word of mouth only- no promotions, no advertising- just people referring people because they were pleased with his work… his name being passed on as if it were something "contagious."

Joe started out doing drawings and designs on the side and slowly moved up to creating company logos and product-labeling designs while working for several years in the printing industry. He has been doing book covers for us for about five years, and some of the most creative covers you see in our catalog were created by Joe in his one-man design studio. Contajus Designs is built on Joe’s creativity and life-long drive to produce the best work possible.

Rebecca Barbier

Graphic Artist / Book Designer / Photoshop Specialist

Rebecca Barbier received her bachelor of fine arts degree from Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida. Over the last twenty-five years she has been involved in all phases of publishing from concept-design to pre-press. She was on staff as an illustrator at the Palm Beach Post for ten years, and she worked as a photo retoucher at the National Enquirer for four years. She loves designing covers. For eight years she was a magazine designer and created the covers for six monthly trade magazines at Nelson Publishing in Nokomis, Florida.  She also has designed over one hundred book covers for Peppertree Press in Sarasota, Florida. Rebecca is always on the lookout for new and fresh ways to visually grab a reader's interest.

Ellen M. Steele

Ellen M. Steele is a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a degree in language arts/elementary education. She brings over fifteen years of desktop publishing experience to the VMI Publishing team.  Desktop publishing is a passion of Ellen’s that began at Multnomah Publishers.  

From the very first book Ellen worked on, she has always felt this skill to be a God-given gift and in return works in tandem with the editorial team and cover designer to make the book unique.  She takes pride in the interior design and strives to have each book be one the publisher and author are proud of.

Juanita Dix

Graphic Designer/Art Director

Juanita Dix launched her design career in 1985 while living in Boulder, Colorado, where she had lived for twelve years. She then moved back to her hometown of South Bend, Indiana, where she established j.d. Design and honed her skills by working with a variety of clients, predominately in the publishing field. She now resides in North Port, Florida, with her husband and a “family” of pets.