Vendi Vernić was born in Zagreb in 1991. After graduating from the School of Applied Arts and Design, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Zagreb, and during this time she completed a term of study at the School of Fine Arts in Venice. In 2015 she graduated magna cum laude under the well-known illustrator and teacher Svjetlan Junaković. Her work has been shown in three monographic exhibitions and she has taken part in numerous workshops and exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. Before she received the SM Foundation Bologna Fair International Award for Illustration in 2018, Vendi had won awards from the Moscow Morse Illustration Festival and the Notte di Fiaba de Riva di Garda Illustration competition in 2017, as well as the Sofia First International Students' Illustration Award in 2012.